


All I Want For Christmas Is...

by josephina_x



Series: XMas 2011 [5]
Category: Smallville
Genre: (mainly Clex), Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Infidelity if you squint (really really -really- hard), M/M, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conner knows what he wants for Christmas this year, but it may be a bit difficult to arrange...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twilightHDfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightHDfan/gifts).



> Title: All I Want For Christmas Is...  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing/Characters: Clark/Lex, Conner (Superboy), Tim (Robin), and a few others, with references to previous Clois, Clana, Lexana...  
> Rating: R  
> Spoilers: post-series (futurefic), takes place before the "seven-years later"  
> Word count: 27,000+  
> Summary: Conner knows what he wants for Christmas this year, but it may be a bit difficult to arrange...  
> Warnings: General for entire series. Fix-it fic. Lots of hurt-comfort. Lots. There is happy at the end, though. Lacks neither cheese nor wine. Unbeta'd. Rating for violence. Oh, and Super!Lana pops up for awhile to make trouble -- fair warning! Also, at one point I 'steal' many, many lines from [a work that is well out of copyright](http://shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T22.html); I am certain that it will be recognized as such -- if not, for shame! :-P  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> AN1: Happy Holidays, [twilighthdfan](http://twilighthdfan.livejournal.com)! I hope you like this one!
> 
> The prompts I used were:  
> "Lex wooing Clark after the rift (maybe after one time when Clark almost got killed?)"  
> "Clark coming to care for Lex when he's hurt, because he knows that no one else will be able to stand up to Lex (and it's Christmas! second chances and all that)"  
> "Connor brings Clex together for christmas and Clex can't deny their feelings"  
> and  
> "Future Fic, happy ending, H/C, romance"
> 
> Unfortunately, I had to violate the "no super!Lana" part of the gift request for a short while, but since I hear tell from a jolly old elf that I have permission for that so long as I get to depowered!Lana pretty quickly...
> 
> :)
> 
> AN2: There are slight updates between this version and the original posted at LJ, mostly just typo-fixes.
> 
> AN3: I probably would not have written Conner and Tim (or parts of the whole Clex interaction thing) the way I did if I had not read astolat's [Reconcilable Differences](http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/smallville/Reconcilable_Differences.html). If you like Conner-Tim interaction and can stomach a bit of infidelity on the Clark-Lois front on the road to Clex, I'd highly recommend checking hers out :)
> 
> [Original post is here](http://clexmas.livejournal.com/49410.html)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Conner squatted on the top of the tall office building halfway across the city from LexCorp Towers and the Daily Planet, and cupped his hands around his eyes. It helped him concentrate when he was doing his telescopic vision-thing, and that was what really mattered.

When Tim had first told him that it looked a little silly when he did that, especially when he turned his hands clockwise and counterclockwise, Conner had gotten a little defensive at his tone. He'd tried to explain how blocking out objects from his peripheral vision helped him keep his focus when he was looking at things far away, because of the whole biological reflex-response humans had to focus on things in their peripheral vision -- which apparently Conner totally had in spades. Then he'd gone on to add that the 'hand turning' motion was just a mental trick -- a keyed action to help with the 'zoom' bits and he didn't _really_ need it...

...at least until he'd realized that that particular smirk meant that Tim was teasing him, at which point Conner had grinned and changed tactics and said he did it so that Tim wouldn't feel left out when Tim had to use _his_ big bulky binoculars, on account of having poor eyesight.

Then Tim started showing up on their joint patrols with miniature binoculars, and Conner had said that they were still way too heavy for their size and took up a whole fighting hand when he might need the other for something else like throwing batarangs.

Conner was eventually proven right after Tim lost three sets on various nightly-patrols over the course of a week. But, the telling bit had been the fourth time when Tim nearly got himself smeared across the pavement. Tim-as-Robin had been trying to toss a batarang at a gun-wielding drug dealer long-distance in a precision throw while also trying to dodge a close-up thug, and had missed his first (and only) handhold off the side of a building. If Conner hadn't seen what was going on helped out, Tim probably would've ended up with a broken leg, or at least a twisted ankle if he hadn't managed to land properly. Conner was just happy that he'd been practicing speed-catches and hadn't hurt Tim himself.

So then Tim started incorporating a set of zoom lenses into his mask, but Conner had pointed out that the buttons on the side of the mask at the temples could be hit in the middle of combat and then Tim wouldn't be able to see what he was doing. And then had proceeded to demonstrate just that himself, instead of waiting for the bad guys to be half-killing Tim in a fight first.

So Tim had grumbled under his breath bat-style and gone back to the big bulky binoculars, and took to swinging them at Conner's head to try and brain him anytime he got too close and pretended he 'just wanted to borrow them for a moment' ...up until Tim decided to go back to the mask zoom lenses.

At which point, Conner had tried to teach Tim the error of his ways all over again. Only _this_ time, much to his surprise, while he'd swear up and down that he'd been able to mess up the magnification something awful, Conner couldn't get the better of Robin-Tim anymore until he started pushing a little into super-speed territory with his taps.

Conner finally figured it out after Young Justice conducted a night-time raid, the lights blew out, and Tim had still been able to hold his own. The next time Conner cornered Tim, he watched Tim's mask at the eyes, and after staring through the lenses carefully he finally realized that Tim was fighting him with his eyes closed. Which, honestly, was pretty kick-ass -- at which point Conner proceeded to pester Tim to teach him how to do that, too.

Conner might still totally suck at the blind-fighting thing, but his hearing had certainly improved by leaps and bounds.

Of course, that just led right into Conner laughing his ass off when they had an actual night mission and Tim donned nightvision goggles over his mask, because they were even huger and bulkier than the binoculars. Which had resulted in an irate Tim and a lecture on how "huger" wasn't a word.

And so, inevitably, that had led to Tim deciding to incorporate nightvision capability into his mask, too. That time he actually kibitzed with Conner a little bit beforehand -- which Conner thought was awesome and just the way it should be -- and they decided that the nightvision bit should fail-off and auto-off if it got damaged, rather than risk temporarily blinding him in broad daylight. ...Except that Tim couldn't quite figure out how to keep all the machinery and electronics thin enough that the mask was practical to wear with _both_ the nightvision and the zoom. So Tim had sighed and settled on just integrated nightvision for now, though he hadn't given up on further miniaturization and weight-reduction. This meant that he was back to the bulky weight-a-ton binoculars all over again. So Conner had been teasing him again.

Conner thought Tim was really fun.

Tim rolled his eyes and told Conner he was just like his dad.

...And while that comment had kind of confused Conner at the time -- because Conner wasn't really like Lex at all, not being an quasi-not-quite-evil villain and all that -- it had percolated in the back of his brain a bit, and finally, one day, he had an idea. A really great idea. A really terrible, horrible, awful idea, in fact. (Conner had been channel-surfing and came across some Dr. Seuss cartoon the other day, and it _totally_ fit perfectly.) He'd been so excited that he'd called Tim right away, and bugged him into meeting, and explained everything.

And now they were on top of a tall office building halfway across the city from LexCorp Towers and the Daily Planet, and Conner was watching the fruits of his labors come to... fruition. With evil, evil little fruits. Yeah.

"This is a really bad idea," Tim said, leaning against the waist-high retaining wall on the roof and gazing over the side at the buildings. His eye-'holes' weren't green, so it must've been one of the old zoom-masks.

"Oh, I hope so!" Conner said gleefully.

"--though I don't mean _evil_ -bad, I mean..." then Tim trailed off as what Conner had said caught up to him.

Conner dropped his hands and turned to look at Tim. "Huh?" His idea wasn't evil-bad?

Tim looked just as confused as he blinked back at Conner, who usually went nuts at even the suggestion of his falling on the wrong side of the good-vs-evil line. "...You _do_ know what I mean, right?" he said slowly.

Conner frowned at him. "But before-- I thought you said--"

Tim stood there and stared at Conner for awhile. "...I was being sarcastic. You still need to work on that, Kon," Tim finally replied, shifting his shoulders and steadying his stance against the concrete brickwork.

Conner frowned. "But I wasn't..." He decided squatting wasn't nearly as fun without Tim doing it, too, especially in broad daylight and without a cape. (Not that he could wear a cape with his t-shirt and jeans without looking like a little kid pretending to be Superman, and he wanted to be taken seriously. He wasn't about to wear the requisite tights to pull it off, though. Never in a million years.) So he took a moment to squirm into a seated position on the ledge and then gave Tim a half-glare. "I thought we agreed that it was a good time to do this -- now rather than later."

"Conner, _'never'_ is a really good time for you to do this," Tim said.

"Oh, c'mon -- now is the perfect time to do this!" Conner defended. "I'm going to end up trying out being a villain _someday_ , just because of dad's Villainous Influence. If I do it now, before I'm all really powerful and really good at the fighting and potentially unstoppable, then if I decide I like it then you guys can stop me before I do something really horrible and save me from myself and either get me all re-goodified or retired before I go super-evil. And if I don't like it, then I'll know it and never wonder or get tempted again later ever. But if I don't try it out, then I'll always wonder, and maybe not do my best in the meantime 'cause I'll worry about whether I should retire before I go bad-to-evil-or-worse and go be a dentist instead, or something."

Tim stared at him.

"It's a good plan!"

Tim stared at him.

"I mean, the trying-out-villainy-right-now bit is a good plan. The _plan_ -plan is a evil-bad plan and a _really_ bad idea."

Tim took a deep breath, scrubbed at his face, then finally said, "Trying to get Lex Luthor and Superman together and doing the kissy-face is a bad idea." Tim couldn't imagine why Kon wasn't getting it; Conner was smart. Supposedly.

"Right!" Conner said, grinning at Tim expectantly.

"It's a bad idea," Tim repeated, slowly.

"Right," Conner agreed, nodding. "I mean, since there's no certainty that it might work at all, it can't be a heroic plan, because good plans always work; villain-plans go horribly wrong all the time. And it totally has to do with breaking up two people who everybody says have true love. So that would make it evil, except that I'm also trying to get together two people with even-truer-love after that, which is really good. Except that Clark is always saying that the ends don't justify the means, so it actually only cancels out a little bit." Then Conner saw a flicker of movement over by the top of the LexCorp Towers and turned back to them. "So, yeah. Bad idea, bad plan," he ended, ringing his eyes with his hands again.

"I don't think that's how it works..." Tim muttered. Then he started and said in mounting horror, "Wait, you're trying to break up Clark and Lois?"

"Already did," Conner said absently. "Was really easy, too. I just found a way to bring up what happened last Christmas with Lex and she drop-kicked his ass to the curb so fast it would've made _Bart's_ head spin." Conner frowned a little, then brought his hands down again and looked back at Tim. "Which was really weird, actually, because I thought it'd take a lot more than that -- apparently there was a really long discussion and lot of yelling involved, though. I didn't think she cared all that much about me, but I guess Clark making any sort of bargain-promise-deal-thing with Lex really upsets her, even if it's for the Greater Good? Lois is kinda crazy sometimes." Then Conner turned to Tim and perked up as he shared the next bit, leaning towards him with his eyes practically sparkling. "Hey, did you know that she's broken up with Clark like, practically every couple months since they've been going out? Because I didn't know that. Not until after. Isn't that interesting? I think it's interesting," Conner grinned, nearly bouncing.

"Uh, yeah, but Clark always makes up with her," Tim pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but that's just 'cause he thinks he has to, 'cause she knows his secret and he likes to make nice with anybody who does," Conner said dismissively, waving his hands. "He doesn't want to be with her. Not really. I mean, think about it," he added, getting a little starry-eyed. "Lois yells and kicks him out of the apartment, and he makes up with her a little, so what. But Luthor shoots him with lasers and stuff, and Superman blows up his labs and things, and they _still_ make-up after all that!"

"Since when?!" Tim said, looking at Conner like he was insane.

"Well, there was last Christmas," Conner pointed out.

"That doesn't count," Tim scoffed. " _You_ were caught up in the middle of everything. They'd both want to behave: Luthor wanted to make a good impression so you wouldn't reject him out-of-hand, and Superman wanted to be a good example like he always is."

"Do you even _remember_ last Christmas?" Conner asked in disbelief, giving Tim a look like he was brain-damaged.

Tim just rolled his eyes. "Fine, agree-to-disagree then. What else you got?"

Yeah, sure, after summarily tossing out his best example. Well, if last Christmas was off-limits for discussion, and Conner couldn't even cite his talk with Superman about Lex later that day, he'd just try something else.

"Ok, well, how about--"

~*~*~*~*~*~

Superman swooped in and started digging through debris.

The five-alarm fire raged above as the Man of Steel tried to clear a path for a way in that would not feed the fire -- he had to avoid causing any interior updrafts that might pull the flames through the corridors and into sections that hadn't yet been set ablaze. He couldn't just wrecking-ball his way in through the walls and zoom around at super-speed trying to rescue folks for the same reason: already-compromised structural integrity and backdrafts. If the building was a little more stable and he had more time, or a proper idea of where all the trapped people were and the progress of the fire, he could have compensated, but he didn't and couldn't. He was more-or-less going in blind.

What was really frustrating was that people were trapped in the first place -- what had Luthor been thinking when he built the place? Clearly it had been a deathtrap just waiting to happen.

But then Superman chided himself and became angry all over again for another reason: Lionel had been the one who built the building in the first place, responsible for the shoddy workmanship and cut corners and bribes, and with whom the main blame rested. But, Lex had been the one who had decided to continue to use it. He'd repurposed the complex as the base for one of his research projects without any renovations and _clearly_ they had been needed desperately.

Apparently Clark was going to have to add "invade privacy and become further threat by X-raying all LexCorp corporate assets for building code violations and reporting them to the proper authorities" to Superman's to-do list. He only hoped Lex would understand the need for it and not take it too personally, as having been prompted by this episode rather than seemingly stemming from some inscrutable vagaries of sorts. ...Or at least the ones he _could_ scan with X-ray vision, anyway, and perhaps that was why the building was still in use. Lead paint was outlawed now for health violations, and any building that was having work done had to meet those and all newer restrictions -- but through a loophole in the regulations, so long as no renovations to meet new codes were done on older buildings, upgrades to meet the existing mandates were not required.

Superman managed to shore up the main entrance and ducked inside at a human-fast run, continuing to try to scan floor-by-floor with X-ray while combining the information with what he was hearing to produce a usable mental map of the place. He hadn't been able to get a good 'view' of the place from outside, from the accumulated junk in the various inner and outer layers of walls; it was significantly easier to see now that he was inside, but his X-ray vision was still spotty in many areas and not an easy task to reconstruct rooms from the vague glimpses he was able to receive.

Listening for heartbeats was slightly more helpful, but only in letting him know how many people were left who were still alive and their general direction -- the corridors echoed the sounds. For better or for worse, the louder screams had petered out fairly quickly with the rapidly diminishing amount of smokeless air which could be used for such. As it was, Superman was holding his own breath and flying low -- oftentimes moving at a quick hover at crawling level now that he'd hit the hotter sections. His suit and cape might be fairly fire-retardant, but they weren't completely heat-resistant. The last thing he wanted to do was to end up giving people third-degree burns while carrying them out of the building -- not if he could avoid it.

He started in the subbasement level and worked his way back up to ground level and above, floor-by-floor, from the interior outwards. He found people curled up in corners and under desks, hiding from falling debris, and gasping for breath. He found them in bathrooms, doused with water and sobbing in fear. He found them hyperventilating as they tried to breath through shirtsleeves and towels, coughing and wheezing from smoke inhalation. He grabbed them and got them out in ones and twos; sometimes he backtracked the way he'd came, sometimes he flew them through a nearby window (only three or four rooms away) that he knew was already open.

None of the sprinkler systems seemed to be working, and when Clark tried a 'quick fix' of pulling one of the sprinkler heads off when he'd gotten to the second floor, he realized that the pipes overhead didn't even seem to be hooked up to the main water supply. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to try and go back to the basement and remedy this, and even if he had, the pipes were most likely too hot now to do anything other than instantly turn the water to steam or possibly tear and rupture at the temperature differential between the metal and the water -- and that was assuming that there weren't other blockages in the system.

Now Superman did start cursing under his breath, because some of those heartbeats he was hearing started to give out, not just move away as if they'd been rescued, being carried through hallways or out windows. And, from what he could overhear from the firefighters, they were pulling everyone out of the building -- the situation having become too hazardous even for Metropolis' less-lauded heroic group -- so he'd be receiving no more help on that count from them.

Not that he could blame them, he grimaced as half a floor came down on his head. Superman pushed his way through the mess and floated up through the hole. He needed to act fast, get as many of the remaining survivors out as he could.

He found another two collapsed under the remains of a large aquarium in what looked like a waiting area and scooped them up, got them out through another open window. He sped up once he had them out in the air, and set them down right by an ambulance, but despite this he heard one of the women's breathing shudder to a stop and the paramedics attempt to perform CPR as the heartbeat went into tachycardia as he sped back towards and into the burning building again. It all seemed so hopeless.

What was worse was that Superman hadn't found any secret labs in the building, or what looked like they could have been at one time, perhaps prior to said massive fire. But he heard faint noises still, even though he couldn't really label them as anything other than 'doesn't really sound like fire noises'. He almost gave up and left, assuming that he must be imagining things, when he heard a shattering sound and then something that was far more familiar. Extremely familiar, in fact.

_Son of a... --He was supposed to be across town!_

Superman swept upwards like an arrow towards the noise, ignoring all else, and smashed through the floor, long past finesse being anything worth worrying about. He came up in the middle of the smoke and heat and turned in midair, then swooped forward and grabbed three of the six people in the very extremely lab-like-looking room. He didn't feel any sort of satisfaction in having found what he'd been looking for.

He blasted a wall out of his path with 'heat vision', completely vaporizing it, and sped them out. He returned as quickly as he could and grabbed two more, and tried to grab the third but the man fought him off, hissing at him and coughing, choking on smoke trying to spit out a curse. Superman couldn't carry three people if they weren't cooperating, so he had to speed off again. But on the return trip for that last person, the wind shifted and the fire blasted up through the floor, hitting the contents of the room and smashing outwards with an explosion that sent even Superman tumbling end-over-end in midair.

Superman curled up in a ball, shielding his face with his arms, and managed to stop his motion before slamming into one of the surrounding buildings or the ground. He slowly brought down his arms and looked over the area morosely as the building finally finished collapsing in on itself, looking nothing so out of place in the small industrial section of town as if it were an entryway into the pits of hell itself.

Superman slowly drifted down to one of the ambulances, and one of the first men he'd scooped up from the lab site. The very first one, in fact.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Clark asked the man sucking down labored breaths from an oxygen mask. "The fire suppression system was completely--"

"--disabled. Terrorist attack," Lex wheezed, pulling the mask down off of his face, looking tired and more than a little pissed off. "Got a damn notice of demands. Hour ago." He batted at Clark's hands when Clark tried to put the mask loops back around his ears.

"Stop it, Lex. Your lungs are practically black. You're going to need a stint breathing 'underwater' in one of those new oxygenated-liquid baths to clear everything out." Lex quit fighting him and took as deep a breath as he could from the mask, considering the state he was in. "Why didn't you call me?" Clark gritted out. Not notifying the League, he could understand, but...

Lex glared at him over the mask. "Mole in the company. Couldn't risk it. Had to try."

"Has your security personnel traced them down?" Clark knew that Lex wouldn't have gone in like that if he'd not been trying to flush the perpetrators out and had a plan to do just that, he wasn't that _stupid_ , and he had resources now that he hadn't had at Plant No. 3, back in Smallville.

Too bad he didn't use the main one he'd had back then today still.

"They have now."

"You going to hand him over?" Superman asked.

"It's a bit late for that now," Lex remarked slowly, between breaths, and Clark realized that it must have been the man who had resisted his rescue efforts earlier.

"Damn it," Clark said quietly, irate. Without the mole, he had nothing for the League to work with. He also had no doubt that Lex wasn't going to share anything about the backing group, just sidestep justice and quietly take them all out himself. _Unless Lex is lying to me right now._

"Too busy to notice the gun?" Lex said dryly.

Superman glanced at Lex, then closed his eyes for a moment and replayed the scene in his mind. Yes, there had been a gun -- on the floor, nearby the hole he'd punched through the floor. It had fallen in with some other random scientific equipment and debris, and he'd barely paid attention to it at the time. He opened his eyes and grimly refocused on Lex.

"I couldn't actually see to disarm him through all the shielding lead paint," Clark said quietly, and Lex grew still. "I don't know what project you were working on to try and muffle ambient noise, but when it finally cut out, it was too late to go for any finesse in breaking in."

"Annoyed, much?" Lex said after awhile with a smirk.

"You have no idea," Clark replied.

"So, how many people died?" Lex asked softly... but unfortunately just a little too blithely, too casually.

"Thirteen. At least." Superman said through clenched teeth. "Prepare for a long round of building inspections, Luthor. No more of this sidestepping or putting off renovations just so you can avoid removing some damned lead paint from the walls." That said, Superman drifted backwards and punched off into the sky.

"And if you have your way, no doubt any sort of privacy shielding would be listed as a fire hazard, I assume," Lex murmured out loud, watching a soot-streaked, very tired, and despairing Clark vanish into the distance.

The newscamera caught everything, but the commentator drowned out the background sounds so much that later analysis found the original audio to be unrecoverable.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"That doesn't really count, Superman always helps people. He doesn't stop to tell whether they're bad guys or not. Maybe he didn't realize it was Luthor at the time," Tim pointed out.

"But he didn't stop until dad was out, and dad was one of the first ones he pulled out when he finally found him," Conner said. "And they talked afterwards. That's not just some random thing."

"Hey, I saw that newscast later, and Superman did not look happy, or relieved, or anything -- he looked mad. They were fighting."

"He was worried!"

"Yeah, about the people who got caught up in the middle of everything, maybe."

Conner just rolled his eyes. "Fine, then -- how do you explain this?"

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex fought the urge to pull at his tie. He was feeling a little... odd. Constrained. His suit seemed a little too small. The _room_ seemed a little too small. And stuffy. He took another swallow of champagne and barely got it down around the lump in his throat. He knew better -- it wouldn't help, he needed hydration and alcohol did the opposite.

Lex wavered on his feet slightly as he smiled at the other guests and continued to mingle. He had to show he was indefatigable. He had to show no weakness. He had to keep up appearances. He had to keep upright. He...

...got slammed into from the side, with no warning.

"Oh, oh m-my! I am - am so so _sorry!_ " the reporter stammered, looking for all the world like he was using _Lex Luthor_ of all people to try to pull himself back upright.

In fact, it was rather the other way around. Lex would have toppled over if not for the sturdy arm that had wrapped around his waist to steady him.

Lex slowly -- slowly, mind you, avoiding the dizziness and nausea sudden movements was causing him -- _slowly_ tilted his head down to stare at his shirt and tie, which were more than a little bit wet with whatever had been in Kent's... water glass.

Right.

"Should get you cleaned up -- sorry! Sorry!" Clark continued to bleat at him, pushing his glasses up and pawing at Lex's tie with a handkerchief that looked like it'd leave more grime behind than it would remove. Lex winced away, or tried to. There were more than a few titters in the room, but they quickly died to nothing as everyone ignored them both when Kent's utterly abnormal and unnatural 'aura' of inconsequentiality-through-inscrutably-ignorable-planned-actions kicked in.

Lex shortly found himself being pushed out of the ballroom with a cajoling-toned prattling-on of half-meaningless jabber dogging his every step.

"Stop it. Clark--" Lex hissed back at him. They turned a corner, and-- there went the reporter-guise. Shit.

Clark stood up straight, grabbed his shoulder, and force-marched him down the deserted hallway.

"What were you thinking? You're still recovering from your exposure to that Tamaranean Flu strain!" It had damn near killed a lot of people. If not for Lex's heightened immune system, he wouldn't have survived long enough for the vaccine to work -- he'd been one of the first few infected.

"It's not as though I'm contagious," Lex pointed out, digging in his heels as best he could.

"That is not the point! You're barely out of the hospital -- you're hardly recovered, you shouldn't be out in public."

"Get off. I _am_ going _back_ to that party!" Lex snarled, trying to twist out of Clark's grip. Failing that, he shot a kick at Clark's knee. He was only half-reminded of the fact that even if he connected it wouldn't do any good, Clark being damn near invulnerable and all, and he without a gram of Kryptonite on him at the moment. Clark sidestepped without letting go, and when Lex missed, he shot a rabbit punch at Clark's head with his free hand -- hoping that, if nothing else, maybe he could break those stupid glasses of Clark's.

Instead, Lex missed as Clark dodged yet again, but this time Lex lost his balance and almost fell over as his knees refused to lock for a moment.

"I swear to god -- Conner was right, you really _do_ need a babysitter sometimes." Clark grimaced as Lex took another swing at him, grabbed his other arm, and twisted around, wrapping Lex up in himself, arms caught straight-jacket-like. Clark held Lex from behind, half-dragging him down the hallway as Luthor hoarsely cursed up a storm. "--No, I take it back, make that _always_."

"You let me go."

"No."

"You let me go right now Kent, or so help me--"

"Or you'll what? Fire me?"

"Yes. Yes. I will fire you."

"God, does that actually work on your staff?"

"I own the Planet! I can and will fire you!"

"... _Does_ that actually work on your staff? Is this why they don't stand up to you when you go and pull stupid shit like this?"

"You're fired. I mean it. You are _fired_ and I'm going to make sure that you never work in this town again!" Lex cursed as Clark kneed open a door, dragged him into a sitting room, and plopped him down on a sofa, because when Clark sat him down he _didn't let go_ and now Lex was sitting on Clark's lap. Lex continued to struggle to no avail.

"Fine, you know what? You do just that, Lex. Go ahead and fire me for spilling water on you, because that's what was in my glass, and what everybody out there saw. And then I'll call up my grandfather -- you know, William Clark? The really awesome lawyer? -- and he will sue your ass, and you will end up in litigation up to your eyeballs. And meanwhile, I will just have even more free time to do Superman stuff. Like keep an eye on all your labs, so I can blow them up the second anybody steps out of line."

Then Clark paused, and got a small mock-innocent smile. "Or... maybe I'll just spend a couple hundred dollars and a few minutes on squeezing coal into diamonds, which I can sell as many of as I want without messing up the economy, because the dealers price-fix them and limit the supply they sell on purpose. And maybe I'll sell them all over the world, so I won't be tapping one particular store out of their cash reserve, and make millions in just one day. And then maybe I'll go and buy myself a little island in the sunny Pacific and hang out there in-between natural disasters and drink Mai Tai's and learn how to surf and never eat peas."

Lex turned and peered up at him, looking utterly disgusted, but Clark happily continued. "And... maybe if I feel like it and am having a bad day when you piss me off really badly, I'll take those millions and billions and just buy up all the LexCorp stock floating out there, call a board meeting, vote you out of power, and fire you right back."

Lex stared up at him, then when he calculated up how many shares he owned at the moment, realized how many were outstanding, and took into account the current corporate policy... Lex gritted his teeth and, oh -- if looks could kill!

"...Orrrrr, I could just keep being a reporter, doing reporter-things, working under you in a job where you can keep an eye on me for at least part of the day, and we can both pretend you never said anything about firing me. Up to you."

"Asshole."

Clark grinned. "Knew you'd see it my way."

"This is blackmail, you know," Lex sniffed, finally stopping his restless squirming. Clark offered him his handkerchief and allowed him the use of one arm.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lex."

"I hate you."

"I know."

When no-one came to check up on them, Clark took a moment to speed away and back again with a bowl of chicken soup for Lex, and a big warm snuggly blanket.

But other than that, Clark didn't let go of Lex, and he didn't leave until the party was winding down, nearly over, and Lex was finally asleep.

And when he left, he took Lex with him.

And no-one else was the wiser...

...except for Conner, who had been 'policing' the party as part of his hero-in-training work, and had been unbelievably bored, and had perked up at hearing his name, and had been listening in on Clark and Lex the entire time they were together -- it'd sort of been becoming his new obsession for awhile, because sometimes what they did (or didn't do) didn't quite make sense -- and he had heard _everything_.

And he saw the dark streak across the sky as Clark flew Lex back to the penthouse where he'd be as safe as he could be.

The young alien-human hybrid stood in the shadow of a column surrounded by leafy plants and tried not to hyperventilate as he vibrated with shock and... something else. It took him a long time before he was able to properly classify the latter as... excitement.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tim stood there quietly for awhile.

Finally, he said, "Well, ok, so maybe Superman cares a little about Luthor. --A _little_ ," Tim emphasized as Conner started to cut in. "But that doesn't mean that Luthor--"

Oh, but Conner had him dead to rights on _that_ count!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Superman smashed into the scenery and fell onto the balcony limply. His vision swam in and out. He couldn't move.

The witch above him -- floating midair, with pink magic swirling about her that, of all things, matched the color of her _hair_ , no less -- cackled as she shot another magic-bolt at Zatanna, who was barely holding her own by comparison. The magician would be no help at all.

He vaguely heard someone calling out something once, twice...

" '...through ... breaks...' "

...and suddenly awareness came back to him with a nearly audible 'snap!'

Clark shook his heard and groaned as he levered himself up slowly.

"Hullo, 'what light through yonder window breaks!' "

The hell? Clark glanced down at the artifact that he'd managed to snag from the witch, who was apparently a real Shakespeare-hater. The little ball of metal, no bigger than his fist, was apparently ensorceled to force the actors to 'play out' the play 'for real' -- brutal sword-fights, horrible deaths, and all. Apparently, getting the leads to kill each other was supposed to be a show-stopper, clearing the way for a production she'd actually find entertaining. When Superman had grabbed it, he'd been able to 'reset' its influence a little bit so that the actors weren't caught up in it anymore -- but now Superman was, and he couldn't break it alone. The witch had taunted him with that knowledge at the worst moment, probably hoping he'd go for it, and she hadn't been lying -- he'd felt the tug of the irresistible magic 'sleep' pulling him under -- but he felt the risk had been worth it: so long as no-one else started trying to act things out again, they wouldn't get caught up in the spell. So who was stupid enough to put themselves forward like that and interfere?

"I _said_ , 'what light through yonder window breaks!' "

_Oh no._

" 'O', should I come back at a more convenient hour? When there is no more 'light through yonder window' breaking? Anybody home up there?"

_That **idiot**._

"Stop.. it..." Clark hissed out, barely able to get out more than a whisper.

Lex had walked up to the edge of the seats and now pushed himself up onto the stage. "I can't hear you so very well -- 'Arise, fair sun!' He 'speaks yet' he 'says nothing;' --would you mind speaking up? Am I 'too bold'? Is it 'not to me' he 'speaks'?"

Clark managed to lever himself up and over the balcony and cursed softly.

"He 'speaks!' "

Superman glared down at a beaming Lex Luthor. Then he saw the artifact spit pink-purple sparks and then a soft glow of the same color swirled and settled around Lex's shoulders before fading. Clark had a sinking feeling...

" 'O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.' "

And Lex orated it all without his usual accompanying gestures, hands firmly entrenched in his pants pockets. With a smirk on his face. The jerk.

And Superman felt the magic shove at him and he could do nothing but call out, " 'O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father a-and...' " his eyes went wide and he stumbled over the words in belated shock, " 'r-refuse thy... name.' " Clark shivered a little uneasily at the last, then he felt the pressure of the magic again and had to continue: " 'Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet.' " Clark had to blink at that one too. This was so messed up.

For his part, Lex took it in stride and then some. " 'Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?' " he grinned a shark-toothed grin, almost poisonously pleased somehow.

And that just pissed Clark off to no end. He threw his emotions -- his _true_ emotions -- into it and twisted under the magic's influence, pushing--

" ' 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a' **Luthor**." He saw Lex start slightly, and Clark grinned almost smugly as he continued. " 'What's' **Luthor**? 'It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name!' "

And now Lex was glaring up at him and looking _highly_ uncomfortable.

But Clark wasn't about to stop now, even if he could. " 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so' **'Lexander** 'would, were he not' **Luthor** 'call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title.' **'Lexander** , 'doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee take all myself,' " Clark declared, and he was sure he was blushing horrifically at the last, but it was worth it all to see _that_ look on Lex's face.

He wished he had a camera.

Lex shifted from foot to foot, but took a breath and replied calmly, " 'I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; henceforth I never will be' ... **Luthor**."

Clark's eyes widened slightly before he mentally shook it off. Right. Focus. Lex just showing that he was able to fight it a bit, too. Apparently the magic wasn't quite able to force things as perfectly to-script as it had earlier. Maybe they could take advantage of that?

" 'What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?' " Clark replied, beckoning to Lex.

Lex frowned and slid his hands out of his pockets. " 'By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: my name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee; had I it written, I would tear the word.' " He took another step forward. More magic lightning exploded at the other end of the theater. Neither of them so much as flinched, eyes locked on each other.

" 'My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: art thou not' **Lex**... 'and a' **Luthor**?" Clark beckoned yet again, glancing around. There was an emergency rope ladder up here with him; two exits necessary for fire safety, there was another egress besides the staircase behind him, thank god.

" 'Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.' " Lex managed to take another two steps, but it was clearly an effort.

" 'How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and...' **easy**... 'to climb,' **but** 'the place death, considering who thou art, if any of' **those witches catch** 'thee here.' "

Lex blinked, then his eyes widened. He glanced at the backstage curtain and strained to move that way, but could not. He breathed in frustration and called out, " 'With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt; therefore' **those witches will be** 'no stop to me.' " As he talked he was able to gain another three steps, and was halfway across the stage.

" 'If they do see thee, they will murder thee,' " Clark cautioned.

Lex just smiled. " 'Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their' **spells**! 'Look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity.' " He flung his arms out wide.

" 'I would not for the world they saw thee here.' " And Clark meant it. Luckily, they did seem otherwise engaged.

" 'I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight; and but thou love me, let them find me here: my life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.' " Four steps this time.

" 'By whose direction found'st thou out this place?' "

" 'By love, who first did prompt me to inquire; he lent me counsel and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far as that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise.' " Another five. He was directly under the balcony now.

" 'Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek for that which thou hast heard me speak tonight. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny what I have spoke, but' **receive yourself**! " Lex looked a little confused at Clark's changes to the script, but Clark was able to reach down and back, a little... a little more...

Clark continued to talk, hoping and praying as he reached... " 'Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say "Ay," and I will take thy word; yet if thou swear'st, thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries they say, Jove laughs.' " And finally, Clark had it! The edge of the rope ladder! He pulled it to his chest in one smooth motion.

" 'O gentle' **Lex** , 'if thou dost love,' **climb to me** 'faithfully; or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, so thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.' " And with that Clark managed to shove the rope ladder over the railing, then collapsed against the painted wooden balcony, fair spent. He managed to groan out breathlessly the rest.

" 'In truth, fair' **Lex** , 'I am too fond, and therefore thou mayst think my behavior light, but trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true than those that have more coying to be' **weird**. 'I should have been more' **trusting** , 'I must confess, but' **feared** 'thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, my' **sad dark secret** : 'therefore pardon me, and not impute this yielding to light love, which the dark night hath so discovered.' " Clark shivered and felt that much worse for the too-personal impromptu changes to the script, but he'd also been pushed into saying what he had by that same magic. This was not good -- the spell was adapting.

" **Love** , 'by yonder blessed moon I' **climb** 'that tips with silver all these' **hung-rope rungs** \--" and Lex was able to grasp the ladder!

" 'O,' **a-scend** 'by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.' " Clark was getting short of breath. He was having more and more difficult a time fighting the magic, having already forced such a drastic change in the script. Romeo was _not_ supposed to climb at Juliet's direction.

" 'What shall I' **climb** 'by?' " Lex was slightly breathless, and it seemed to be taking him a great deal more effort to climb the ladder than it should, as well...

" 'Do' **please climb it** 'all;' " and Clark grimaced as he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He gripped the balcony as his vision swam as he continued. " **And** ," he shook slightly, " **And** 'if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I'll believe thee.' "

" 'If my heart's dear love--' " Lex was only halfway up, and was clutching and straining at the rungs -- he was trying to move his arms upward but couldn't seem to pull his hands off of the rope, and his legs seemed invisibly weighed down as well.

Clark didn't think he could make many more changes without passing out, but Lex seemed to need help to climb any higher. " 'Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight.' " True enough. " 'It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say "It lightens." Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast!' " He'd tried, he really had, but it was all he could do to barely get out the correct words.

Lex frowned up at him a little desperately, unable to progress further. " 'O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?' "

" 'What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?' " Clark breathed out disconsolately, his head sinking against the railing.

" 'The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.' " Lex said simply, reaching his hand up towards Clark.

" 'I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: and yet I would it were to give again.' " Clark rejoined.

Lex smiled slowly, then gestured at the rope ladder. " 'Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?' " he inquired, innocently.

Clark blinked at him and sat up. " 'But to be frank, and give it thee again.' " And then Lex smiled up at him as Clark grabbed the closest rung. " 'And yet I wish but for the thing I have'!" And Clark tugged hard. " 'My' **strength!** " Lex chimed together with Clark "--'is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.' " And with them both reciting the last together, Clark was able to pull Lex up over the edge -- just in time, as they collapsed together bonelessly on the plywood flooring.

Clark was panting in small breaths, unable to breath out another word. This was the time for the Nurse to call, and with that he would be forced to walk out and away, when the magical artifact needed at east two to break it. But, without the Nurse...

Without the Nurse's call, Clark couldn't get out Juliet's next line, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

This should not have been a problem... under normal circumstances when he could hold his breath for an age when he wasn't tired and on the verge of collapse.

Clark tried to sit up once more, levering himself upright, but collapsed again. He tried once more, straining upwards, and failed, his head slowly sinking back to the plywood floor.

Lex was searching around for something, Clark wasn't sure what. Lex started mouthing silent curses and kicking at the balcony, as Clark's vision swam again. He was so very tired, and the last scene that had been playing out on stage when Superman had grabbed the artifact -- before Lex had rewound everything to the nighttime meeting, only temporarily it seemed -- had been the death scene, with Juliet having taken the sleeping draught. If Lex didn't do something quickly...

Lex might really be forced into the role of Romeo -- receiving a fatal poisoning, conveniently magic-supplied without need of powder or cup.

But Lex looked horribly determined as he smashed the rungs to splinters, then pulled Clark up towards him. They were both barely sitting upright, but Lex had a white-knuckled grip around a good-sized chunk of railing he'd managed to break away from the scenery. Clark wrapped his hand around Lex's, they lifted their arms together...

And brought down the wood plank on the focus of the spell with all of their combined strength.

The little metal globe shattered like it was made of glass.

They heard a horrifically enraged shriek behind them, and the force of it slammed them both back against the 'house' wall.

Clark groaned and slowly sat up. He saw the witch toss a final eldritch bolt at the stage before fleeing the premises, unable to do more than lie where he was sprawled and stare at his impending death, but Zatanna intercepted and dispelled it, then followed her out in hot pursuit. Clark slumped against the wall in pure relief at the unexpected save, then glanced downward and blinked as he watched the 'metal' shards of the miniature globe steam away into pink-grey smoke until nothing remained. Clark blew softly and dissipated the last of the vapors.

"Stupid magic," Clark sighed, dropping his head back against the 'wall'. He felt _drained_ , so much so that he was really too tired to get properly angry over it all.

Then he glanced over at Lex, who was splayed across the balcony 'floor' and looking up at Clark, eyes sparkling.

"What are you so happy about?" Superman asked petulantly. Lex's smile stretched into an ear-to-ear _grin_.

"I've always wanted to be in a play!"

Clark stared.

Lex laughed.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post is here](http://clexmas.livejournal.com/49700.html)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Robin's mouth dropped open.

"That so did not happen!" Tim blurted out.

"It so did." Conner looked smug.

"You- That- You- --You're making it up!" Tim spluttered in complete denial.

Conner glared at Tim. "I am not! I saw and heard everything!"

"Get out!"

"No, really! That was the time when Circe got mad that the Metropolis Theater of Arts was putting on Shakespeare plays because she didn't like The Tempest, and got her weeks confused."

Tim vaguely remembered that, then frowned and asked, "Isn't she one of Wonder Woman's enemies?" Conner nodded. "Why was she in Metropolis?" Conner shrugged. "That sounds like a setup, almost."

Conner frowned. "I don't see how." Then, when Tim gave him a look and he caught on, "Oh, come on -- sure Lex does stuff to annoy Superman once in awhile, but this was magic! He _hates_ magic! He wouldn't want an evil witch around any more than Superman would!"

Tim still kept looking at him skeptically.

"And... and he was being more helpful than making things worse or poking at Clark or anything."

More silence.

"He was risking his life to save Clark!"

Tim scoffed.

"Oh, come on -- he was! And it was totally romantic." Tim looked at him half-horrified. "Okay, maybe you had to be there. But it was! Lex _totally_ meant what he was saying!" Conner pressed the point.

Tim scrubbed at his face, disbelief clear. "...How were you even there?" he asked, finally. "It was a closed rehearsal in the middle of the day on a weekday, wasn't it?"

"I had a math test that afternoon, finished early, heard the sirens, and figured I had time to check it out."

"You cut class?!"

"I had lunch next!" Conner protested. "And then history, which is totally boring!" It was -- the guy did not know how to teach at _all_ and practically put him to sleep -- Lex was way more entertaining at explaining old stuff. "It's not like anybody missed me -- I took the bathroom pass."

Conner could practically hear the brain circuits in Tim's head frying -- skipping the awesomeness that is school, does not compute -- before he apparently remembered that Conner didn't always make sense to _anyone_ , least of all him, and got himself back under control. "...Ok, so I get why Superman would show up, but Luthor? How could he be there and it not have been a trap?"

"Lex was the one to sponsor the plays," Conner said, folding his arms. "He totally had a reason to be there. It wasn't random."

"...So, what you're telling me is that he was the main contributor to fund an event that drew a big-time villain and all-around menace to Metropolis, and was there right at the time when said villain showed up, and to you this proves that he _wasn't_ setting up a trap that involved Superman having to go up against a magic-user in his own city, while getting to watch from the best seats in the house?"

Conner glared at Tim. "You're twisting everything around! That's not what happened!"

"Conner--"

"--and just because it turned out badly doesn't mean Lex meant it to! Not everything he does is a plot!" Tim snorted, and Conner felt a painful mixture of shame and rage. "He funds stuff all the time that doesn't get broken up by baddie fights!" he gritted out.

"Conner..." Tim sighed.

"I know what I saw!"

"Well, then you're just misunderstanding things."

Conner gave him an even madder glare. "I am _not_ \--"

"Look," Tim said hurriedly, "I understand, ok? I know how you feel about Clark; I know how you wish he was your--"

"--Shut up!" Conner yelled, turning dead-white and slapping his hands over Tim's mouth. "Shut up shut up SHUTUP!"

Tim winced away. "Sorry, I just--" He bit his lip. "It's not like--"

Conner glared so hard his eyes started to go red. It so too was like! Clark had super-hearing, and he might hear, and Conner didn't want to jinx it. He knew what Clark thought; to Clark he was a little brother -- Clark had told him so. It was ok -- except when it wasn't, and then it sucked -- and he wished so much... he wished...

"It'll be better this way. It so will," Conner said firmly, his voice shaking only a little as he pulled back clenched his fists.

"I know how badly you want this, but it just won't work. It can't happen, ok? You're seeing things that aren't-- ...It's like those dumb fortune-tellers and spirit-mediums and crap, ok? If I went to them, and believed that they could help me talk to my parents, and then found out later how wrong I was... it would hurt worse than if I listened to somebody before getting my hopes up, ok? That's what you're doing to yourself right now, Conner. I'm just trying to--"

"I am _not_ seeing things that aren't there, I'm seeing things that _are_ there. And if you're not gonna help then just stay out of my way!" Conner growled, turning away and going back to staking out the rooftops.

"Kon--" Tim started.

Conner pointedly ignored him.

Tim sighed. He waited, and thought, and waited, then finally said, "Look, I didn't say I wouldn't help--"

"Good."

"--I just don't want you getting hurt, ok?"

"I'm not gonna get hurt."

Tim sighed again, then shoved himself up onto the ledge next to Conner and tuned his own mask to the right setting.

They were silent for awhile as Tim tried to figure out how to broach the other topic, which was kind of always the elephant in the room when it came to Conner.

"...So, you're trying out villainy, huh?" Tim finally threw out there, lightly.

"Yup."

"You know, you never said anything about the 'trying out evil' thing before," Tim added neutrally.

"Villainy, not evil," Conner corrected absently. "And what, it wasn't obvious with the whole coming-up-with-bad-plans thing?" Conner said in a 'duh' voice.

"Uh, no. Not so much."

"Seriously?" Conner said, turning to Tim in surprise. Tim nodded. "Oh. Well, whatever," Conner shrugged, turning away again. "You know now." He went back to focusing on the roof of LexCorp, and his dad, who was now up there. It was looking good so far -- there were no weapons about that Conner could see...

"And how long do you think it's gonna take for you to decide whether you like villainy?"

"I'm giving it 'til Christmas," Conner said, smiling. "It's like a week-long Christmas present for dad. If I only did it for just one day, he wouldn't think I gave it enough of a chance. It's gonna be a surprise present, though -- if I told him beforehand, he'd totally try to bias the results in his favor." And that was how Conner knew Lex loved him.

"So, up until the 25'th, or until the end of the day?"

"Why?"

"I just want to know when I might be needed to thwart your villainy-of-doom this holiday season, is all."

"Oh." That made sense. "Uh, well, maybe through the end of the day, I guess? Midnight, I mean, not 5pm," he added, thinking about business hours versus hero work hours. "I mean, I figured I'd be kinda busy with the whole get-dad-and-Superman-hooked-up thing the whole time, and it'll probably take awhile, so an extra whole day would probably be good." Conner could practically hear the disapproval steaming off of Tim; he figured it must've been the poor planning, because Tim hated those. "I'm sorry, I didn't really think that far ahead! But I think I'm spending it with Clark, so he'll be watching me and you won't have to."

Tim twitched and grumbled something unintelligible, even to Conner's ears.

"What? If it all works out early, I'm sure I can come up with something else, too, if I have to! Or, like, subplans, or something, if things are going really slow between the two of them and I need to give them some time in-between steps in the bad plan."

"What, like getting Lois single so you can woo her yourself?"

"Heh, yeah, that would be great-- ...wait, didn't I ...already do that?" Conner sat bolt upright. "Holy crap, I hadn't even really thought about that part of it before -- my subconscious is totally badass! This evil thing is way too easy for me. Uh," Conner glanced over at Tim nervously. "If I end up deciding to be good after all this, you don't think I should be worried about my subconscious totally undermining me, and my conscious self accidentally doing all sorts of villainy while _trying_ to do good, do you?" And as much as Conner had made it sound like he was just joking, he actually was a little worried about it. Maybe he really was programmed to be bad somehow. Lex sort-of was, and people definitely thought he was. And since Conner had started out life as what people _thought_ Lex was...

Tim just rolled his eyes again.

Well, that didn't really answer his question.

So Conner stuck his tongue out at Tim, then tried to snake a hand behind Tim's back and around his side to mess with the zoom settings on his mask.

Tim smacked him.

But that sort of did. Conner figured he'd probably be ok so long as Tim was around.

And Clark. Clark, too. If Superman could wrangle Lex, Clark could totally handle Conner, too.

A streak of red caught his attention, and Conner grinned excitedly as Superman joined Luthor on the roof. His bad plan was coming to fruition already -- cool!

~*~*~*~*~*~

"I've turned off the security measures; you can land if you'd like," Lex said at a normal decibel level, feeling no need to raise his voice when he knew that Clark could hear him perfectly fine without him doing so.

Superman hovered lower, and lower, and finally floated close enough to touch down on the roof a few feet away.

"So, mind telling me what's going on?" Lex asked calmly, sliding his hands into his pockets and walking a little closer.

"Well, for starters, Conner and Tim are on the roof of the Metropolis City Center watching us both. Conner hasn't gotten the hang of using his super-hearing at the same time as his telescopic vision, or anything else, so we don't have to worry about him listening in, but Tim can read lips, so if there's something you don't want him or Bruce to know, look towards the water," Clark informed his nemesis.

Lex blinked at him, then nodded once. Frowning, he said, "I take it you were not really the one to call this meeting, then, despite the apparent originating IP address of the email?"

Clark shook his head. "I got one similar. It didn't really sound like you, so..."

"...you thought to check it out and confirm, anyway?" Lex smiled slightly.

Clark shrugged. "That, and it's been a little hard to tune out Conner lately. He's been... plotting," Clark said with something between a wince and a grimace.

"...Plotting?"

"And planning," Clark sighed.

"My son, plotting at his age. ...Well, it's about time," Lex smirked.

Clark gave him a _look_. "He's three, Lex. And they're really bad plans."

"Tch," Lex waved away. "He's highly intelligent, and you underestimate him."

"I'm not underestimating him, and you should take this more seriously," Clark sighed.

"Oh, stop it. You're just cranky because Lois broke up with you again," Lex needled. When he got no response, he turned to face Clark more fully. "She broke up with you again?"

"You're surprised?"

"It was just a rumor." Lex looked a little uneasy. "This isn't exactly the best time of year for it. What happened?"

"Conner informed Lois he was spending Christmas with us this year, and then said he wanted to know if Lois wanted to spend it together with us, too. Then Lois wanted to know what Conner meant by 'us'."

Lex's eyebrows raised. "You asked Lois to... let me... join your festivities?" Lex could hardly believe that.

Clark shook his head and sighed, looking uncomfortable. He pulled his legs up to float cross-legged in front of Lex, then floated downwards to 'land' again as Lex gracefully folded his legs to sit on the roof himself and gestured likewise.

"That wasn't exactly what happened."

"What did, then?"

"Well, first off, mom hustled Conner off to go shopping with her to grant us some privacy, and you know how she keeps him busy -- he only probably heard one word in ten."

Lex made a 'go-on' motion, and Clark grimaced and forged ahead. "I never brought up the whole 'holiday' deal thing with Lois. She didn't know Conner was bouncing between us two." He paused and glanced off to the side.

"She didn't like the idea of spending the holiday with you and Conner both?"

"In a word? No." Clark rubbed a hand at the back of his neck. "She maybe would've been ok with just Christmas, but she didn't like the idea of Conner tagging along at work for most of the rest of this month, or staying at our apartment for so long, sleeping there and sharing the space."

"If it's because there's not enough room--?" Lex began to offer.

Clark shook his head. "It's more to do with privacy and not wanting him around. I don't know if you know what happened with Conner and mirror-Lionel..."

"Red-K ring, Lois abducted to the burned-out mansion -- yes, I know the basics."

"Well, she changes her mind every other day as to whether she thinks that he's creepy or not-creepy."

"Lois either needs to get over herself, or carry around a blue-K taser for peace of mind." Lex didn't bother to state the obvious -- that she'd never actually need it. "No green-K, though -- if I find out she's packing that around _my_ son--" Lex growled.

"That's not really an issue, Lex," Clark stopped him. "That wasn't really what the fight was about."

Lex frowned at him, and Clark continued reluctantly. "Yes, sure -- she didn't like the fact that I'd made a decision with you about Conner behind her back that mom wasn't really aware of, either, until after the fact." Lex had to blink at that -- he had originally thought Clark had been acting with Martha's approval, or at least at her suggestion, since Clark had been the one to really broach the topic in the first place. "And yes, she can't make up her mind on Conner, and whether she thinks it'd make any difference whether he's spending time with you at all."

It took Lex a moment before that really hit. "She thinks Conner is a villain?!?" Lex was spitting mad. "He hasn't done _anything_ to warrant--!"

"I know that, but sometimes she sees him and thinks _you_ and..." Clark looked frustrated, a frustration that Lex was not used to seeing recently -- it was one he'd only ever seen Clark get when talking about how Jonathan was being unreasonable about something-or-another, usually dealing with something related to him. "I can't really do anything about that, other than explain to Conner that being like you is not necessarily a bad thing."

Lex decided to go with a silent 'no comment' on that front.

"But no -- what really pissed her off was the time I spent with you two last year," Clark ended.

"...You didn't tell her about it before?"

"Apparently she thought that I'd been so busy that I'd only just made it back to Kansas Christmas evening," Clark sighed.

"But, Young Justice--" Lex spluttered.

"I know."

"And _Batman_ \--" Lex said, wide-eyed. He knew the League chattered like old biddies with a juicy tidbit of gossip.

" _I know_."

"How could she _not_ have heard about-- ...And she thinks you kept it from her on purpose?" _Mind-boggling_ , Lex thought, and Clark agreed.

"I couldn't convince her otherwise, after I told her about what happened."

Lex stared at him. Then he said slowly, "You told her about what happened."

"I had to." Pause, then. "I couldn't lie to her."

"...What exactly are we referring to here."

Clark looked at him evenly, and then Lex got it.

"...That isn't fair, it wasn't really-- I was just... and _you_ didn't _do_ **anything** \--"

"That doesn't matter. She holds me to the standard I hold myself to."

Lex sat quietly for awhile, speechless, and then groping blindly for something to say, before finally coming up with: "...She sleeps around during your break-ups, you know." And from Lex's tone he made it clear that he thought that half the reason for those breakups was that sometimes Lois decided that she wanted to do just that.

"Yes, I know," Clark replied noncommittally.

Lex looked like he wanted to shoot someone, and it wasn't hard to guess who. "I can't believe that she'd..."

Clark looked down at his hands.

"...be _so stupid_ ," Lex muttered, rubbing his temples. "She doesn't deserve you."

"I know."

Lex jerked his head up to stare at Clark. "What did you say?"

"Lex... --Look, I didn't really come here today to whine at you about how Lois is acting like a nutcase this week, ok? I wanted to know if you'd want..." -- stupid question, of course he did -- "if you'd be _ok with_ having Conner spend the holiday with you again."

"You don't want to spend--?" Lex found that impossible to believe. _Are you putting Lois before Conner?_ was even more impossible for him to contemplate.

"Lex, I have to work! If I take him with me to the Planet, she'll snipe at him whenever she sees him, regardless of whether I'm around because she'll think that I can't or won't defend him while I'm busy there doing... what I usually do..." Clark grimaced. "And without Lois on my side about it, Perry will yell about how the newspaper is not a daycare facility. I don't want him exposed to that sort of stress in a hostile environment. And without a decent place to stay, I can't leave Conner to his own devices at home in the daytime, either."

"Lois kicked you out again?" Lex snorted. "You really need a spare place to crash for when she--"

"I can't afford to pay half the rent and expenses _and_ also keep even a hole-in-the-wall on the side on my salary, and even if I did somehow manage that, then Lois would complain that I wasn't taking the relationship seriously if I was keeping something like that, like I was planning a 'way out' or something, and dump me for _that_. Not that that matters anymore." At Lex's inquisitive look, Clark added, "Lois has made it clear that she doesn't want to spend the holiday season with me, so I'm giving her what she wants." And from his tone of voice, it was pretty clear that Clark was hoping she'd choke on it.

"Clark..." Lex took a breath, then added, "Of course Conner can stay with me." He paused for a beat, then added casually, "If you'd like to stay with us, too, you're more than welcome... assuming that the timetable for commute doesn't make anyone suspicious wherever we end up deciding on staying, of course."

Clark stared at Lex for a moment, because he knew damn well that Lex had meant it as a sincere gesture. "Lex, you do realize that if Lois finds out that her getting mad for me spending less than 24 hours with you and Conner ended up in me spending an entire _month_ with you and Conner..."

"She's going to go ballistic?" Lex grinned.

"...You know, for a guy who's not evil, you sometimes bear a pretty close resemblance to it some days, in some ways," Clark pointed out dryly.

"I try," Lex said with humility. "Though... I'm sure Conner wasn't meaning to break you up," Lex dissembled, getting back to the start of their discussion.

"He was certainly surprised that that was the outcome from what happened," Clark said lightly.

"Clark--"

"I don't blame him, Lex. It's fine, really." And Clark didn't, not really. Not when he knew what Conner wanted, and why.

Unfortunately, Clark knew that, in this case, it was impossible to give Conner what he wanted.

Even if sometimes he wished for the exact same thing himself.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Conner was antsy, rocking from side to side as he watched the two of them talking.

"What're they saying, can you tell?" he asked Tim.

Tim shrugged. Conner grumbled and griped a little bit, but the fact that they were talking and obviously not fighting was a good sign, right?

"They should have a couch to sit on," Conner said. "That can't be comfortable."

"The roof has a helipad, Conner -- they can't just set up whatever they want."

"They could move it later," Conner pointed out. Then he frowned as the access door to the roof crashed open and a woman strode out onto the tarmac. "Hey, what?" he said in confusion. "Who the hell is that?!"

The duo from Young Justice sat there, shocked, as Lex and Superman scrambled upright, both looking surprised and no little bit shocked. At first Conner thought it must be a villain, because Clark moved in front of Lex a bit, his body language protective, and strode forward a few steps. But then, everything changed.

The woman didn't slow down, and strode right up to Clark, stopping inches away. Clark looked worried, then almost wary, then horrifically confused.

Then she wrapped her arms around Clark's neck and kissed him.

"Oh my god _WHAT?!?!_ " Conner yelled. "She can't do that! Hey! Stop doing that! Somebody -- somebody needs to stop her--!" Then he paused and went still, and before Tim could stop him, Conner was gone.

Robin cursed under his breath and split his attention between watching the roof and scrolling through his portable datalink to try and figure out who the woman was.

"Oh fuck," Tim said, as he saw Conner burst onto the scene shortly thereafter.

When Tim's brain caught up to him and he realized that Lex was pale, expressionless, and that his hands had been slowly clenching into fists as he stared at the woman while she mauled Clark, he cross-referenced brunettes with _both_ Clark and Lex.

When he got only a handful of matches, found the woman, and pulled up her Watchtower profile, the blood drained from his face so fast he felt faint.

"Conner, oh god -- Conner, pick up! Pick up!" he whispered frantically, hands shaking as he dialed Conner on their comm system.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"You there! Interloping woman-lady-person! Get your hands off him! You're messing up my plan!" Conner yelled, pointing at the bitch who was ruining _everything_.

The petite little nothing turned to him with big doe-eyes and _was still clinging to Clark_. If Conner wasn't trying to be just bad instead of pure evil, he would've punched her in the face and not worried about whether she'd die with her brain matter all smeared across his fist and _wow_ ok, he was really taking the thinking-villainous-thoughts thing maybe just a _little_ too far.

Clark and Lex looked at him blankly, and for a moment Conner felt exposed. He fought the urge to check to make sure he really was wearing the ski mask and the serial-killer-type hockey mask over _that_ (lined with lead, because he wasn't _stupid_ ) and black leather jacket and army cargo pants and spiked gloves. They couldn't know it was him, right? He was using a voice-changer and wearing different clothes and everything!

"Who are you?" the woman asked, sounding almost bored. Like he was totally beneath her notice somehow, and no threat at all.

To hell with that.

"I'm the baddest villain you're ever gonna lay your sorry-ass eyes on, and if you _don't_ disappear yourself in two seconds, I'm gonna rip you off him and..." drat, he couldn't toss her off the _roof_ , Clark would feel like he'd have to dive after her and catch her, and that would just involve more clinging! "And you will know pain." Right, because evil did that sort of thing, and evil was freaking terrifying and just the sort of thing to scare her off. The worst villainy was evil, and did pain-things, and he was vague and didn't have to specify how much, so it was in-character for his villainy trial-week. Could be a papercut, could involve knives of something. She wouldn't know.

But she didn't react properly at all -- all she did was smile again and said, "No."

Conner couldn't possibly have heard her right.

"...No?" Conner growled dangerously.

Lex stepped closer to Conner and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him. Conner looked at him in confusion. "Don't--" Lex whispered.

"No. He's my boyfriend and I'm not going anywhere."

Conner and Lex both turned and stared at her.

Lex, startled, let go of Conner.

" _The hell he is!_ " Conner yelled, seeing red.

When the haze cleared, Conner was panting, arms outstretched, both Clark and Lex were yelling, and the bitch was half-embedded in the wall next to the access door in front of him.

"I-- I--" Conner stammered.

Then she raised her head, curled her fingers around the edges of the hole, and pulled herself out of the wall, looking vaguely annoyed.

"Uh..." Conner said, not sure whether he felt relieved or not.

Then he heard his comm chiming and raised his hand to his ear. _::Conner, you have got to get out of there! That's Lana!::_ Tim's voice told him, sounding frantic, and that was weird because Tim _never_ sounded freaked out.

"Who?"

He watched Lana stalk a bit towards him, watched Clark speed over to check to make sure she was ok and offer _apologies_ , got mad all over again.

_::Lana Lang, Lex's ex-wife and Clark's ex-girlfriend and -- look, she has this crazy super-suit-skin thing and is practically invulnerable and she's been off the radar. Deep off.::_

"Oh, yeah? You don't say. Kind got the invulnerability thing from watching her being able to get _half-punched through a wall without a scratch_. What else you got."

Tim didn't skip a beat. _::Batman thinks she might have been killing people, but there's no proof. She's got Kryptonite radiation embedded in her skin -- you have to get away from her -- she hates Lex!::_

"Really?" Then Conner got a slow grin. "Great, I didn't really _need_ another reason to punch her into next week, but sure. Awesome. No K on her though, I feel fine, but thanks for the heads-up."

"Conner!" Lex exclaimed, grabbing his arm and pulling him backwards away from Lana, and Lex was looking at him like he couldn't decide whether to yell at him or shake him until he rattled. "Stop this right now!"

_::No, Conner, wait! -- if she finds out who you are, she's going to **ki** \--!::_

Conner flipped the comm off again.

"...Conner?" Lana said, looking between Lex and Conner. "Your little mini-me clone-monster version of Clark?" she said lightly, like she was discussing how pleasant the weather was that day.

"Lana..." Clark protested tiredly, turning to her. But he hadn't seen the expression that had flitted across her face. Conner did, and he might've missed it if he hadn't had super-speed. He wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but he felt a shiver go up his spine.

But apparently Lex hadn't missed it, either, because Lex's hand suddenly clenched down around Conner's arm so hard he would've had bruises if he'd not had Kryptonian DNA in the mix. Then Lex's heart skipped a beat for a moment, then was thrumming away rabbit-fast.

And Conner hesitated. Because Lex was acting like... like he was afraid of her. And that was _insane_.

And that was when he realized how dangerous she really was.

Ex-this, ex-that, messing around between them? Forcing them apart?

No. Nobody messed with his family. Nobody.

Conner tore off the hockey mask and ski mask in quick succession and tossed them at the tarmac. "You do _not_ threaten my father," he snarled, shrugging Lex off and stepping forward, fists out.

Bitch was going down. Hurt his parents again, would she?

Over his dead body.

Then everything went wrong.

Lana was suddenly in front of him, almost faster than he could blink.

Conner's eyes widened, because Tim hadn't said anything about super-speed.

Then she whipped out a knife -- a glowing, green knife -- and Conner felt pain unimaginable.

And then he hit the ground.

He stared up at Clark, who was standing in front of him.

Who then fell to his knees and onto his side.

Conner shakily scrambled to sit up, and then he saw the handle of the blade jutting from Superman's chest.

Conner screamed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex barely had time to think.

Lana smiled at him, eyes dark. God help him, if he'd known that she hated him so much that she'd do this, just to get to him--

He'd have killed her. Would've torn out his own heart doing so, but he'd have done it.

She could use super-speed, but she wasn't. She walked towards him, taking her time. _Enjoying_ it. The feeling of power. Life and death hers to decide.

Lex remembered what Clark had once said about evil, and felt horrifically sick.

He'd done this to her, caught her up between him and Lionel.

Lex had had Clark, for such a long time, but Lana? She'd had no-one. Least of all him. He couldn't be trusted, hadn't been able to be her light against the dark.

Lionel had eaten her alive, and he hadn't seen it.

And now she was poison, and he'd _made_ Clark see that.

Except she'd shown up at the worst possible moment, having somehow de-irradiated herself, and Clark had let his guard down.

And she'd struck like a viper in the dark, all that poison on the inside still there, all the more potent for having had more time to distill in the heat of white-hot anger.

He had planned for this, having to confront her. He had known she'd be back eventually. He'd thought he'd been ready for her. But he had never expected this, he realized, fighting the urge to glance down at Clark, to run over to him, to curl into a little ball and scream.

Lex backed up a step, two. Lana's almost vacant smile widened slightly. He pointedly did _not_ look at Conner. He had to keep her attention on himself, and away from Conner, if he was going to have any chance.

The last thing he needed was for Lana to think of pulling the knife out of Clark and using it again, to take Conner out of commission as well. Possibly permanently, and he struck the thought from his mind before it paralyzed him, prevented him from acting.

Bored with the stalking game finally, Lana blinked into existence right in front of his nose and wrapped a hand around his neck.

Even prepared for it, waiting for it, Lex was barely able to react in time.

As she lifted him off his feet, he slid the aerosol mask into his hand and slapped it over her nose and mouth, right before she squeezed.

He saw black for a moment, heard a cracking noise, and coughed, his knees hurting as his vision swam back into focus.

Conner had her by the wrist, had squeezed hard enough to make her drop him... by super-strength standards. Her right wrist looked like jelly in his grip.

She hissed at him like a feral thing.

His son flicked her at the ground so hard she bounced. Tears were running down his cheeks, but his face had no expression. And then he--

Lex launched himself at Conner, encircling him in his arms, squeezing so hard he felt his own ribs ache. "STOP!" he yelled, hoarsely.

Conner twitched, but his hands, encompassing Lana's throat, did not tighten further.

"She killed him," Conner croaked, shaking as he fought an internal war over a decision that Lex had long prayed Conner would never have to confront.

"No, Conner."

"She killed.. she killed dad, she needs to die."

"Conner, let go!" Lex said raspingly with as much authority as he could muster.

"She'll kill again, she was going to kill you, she--"

"No, she won't. It's done. Undone. You see her skin?" Lex babbled smoothly, trying to project calm. The outer layer of 'skin' -- the suit -- was already beginning to turn grey and crack. "It won't work anymore. She's not invulnerable now. She has no powers of any kind. She cannot take any sort of punishment, and if you do not let go you will kill her."

"Good," Conner said hoarsely.

"Conner -- you have to let go!"

"No!" his grip started to tighten.

" _Clark needs you!_ "

Conner gasped and jerked away in automatic reflex. "Wh- wh- no- he- you-" His eyes were rolling around in his head, and Lex pulled him backwards to his chest, wrapped an arm around his head, got Lana's prone form out of his line-of-sight.

"You need to get Clark to the Watchtower. He's not dead. He's survived worse. But he needs help _now_."

"I-- he-- ...n-not dead?" And Conner's eyes went from blank and dead to shocky but at least somewhat there.

"No, he's not," Lex said, pulling Conner upright and over to Clark's prone, motionless body. Conner whimpered as Lex kneeled next to him and pulled the Kryptonite knife from Clark's necrotic flesh with a sickening sucking sound, then tossed it to the edge of the roof. It hit the lining wall hard. "Take the stairwell, try not to jostle him. Grab Emil as soon as you're there, tell him Clark was stabbed with twenty grams of triple-refined green-K, one-minute-twenty duration. He'll know what to do."

Conner staggered, fell to his knees from even the short exposure, but gathered himself back together quickly, scooped Clark up, and sped off.

And Lex was left alone on the roof of LexCorp Towers with Lana's slowly-stirring form.

He clenched his fists on his knees and could not think of a single reason why Lana should not die horribly.

He slowly levered himself to his feet, pulled a semiautomatic from his shoulder holster, and turned in one smooth motion, raising the gun to unload the clip into her skull.

He didn't pull the trigger.

But only because a child was barring the way.

"Drake, you have balls, and I respect that, but if you do not move _I will shoot through you_."

"Conner will never forgive you if you do," Tim said, voice shaking.

Without warning, Lex took Tim down in three lightning-fast punches to the neck and skull, and snarled, "Fine!" leaving him sprawled on the ground. Conner might not have understood Lex killing Tim in the heat of the moment, but he would understand _this_. Lana was still dangerous, and Lex wanted Conner to feel safe. Be safe. He turned back to his task.

But Lana was already starting to sit up, and Lex had to mentally clamp down on a scream, because this would have been so much easier if she hadn't been conscious. And then he was stalled even further, because while the boy was too dazed to get back to his feet, he was still able to grab Lex's leg.

"N-no. St-stop. You... you stopped Conner... because... it was wrong."

Lex pulled the slide back, felt the first round click into the chamber. "I stopped Conner because I did not want my son to become a killer."

He grabbed Robin and shoved the boy off of him. He hit a few feet away, rolled limply, and didn't move again.

"You won't shoot," Lana scoffed, smiling like she knew a secret that she could bury him with. "You still love me. You couldn't do it then, and you can't do it now."

"I didn't want to shoot you then, because I loved you then. I loved you still, even when you framed me for murder." His voice shook. "I loved you still, even when you were with Clark, because at first I thought you loved him. At first, I thought he made you happy, until I realized you were just using him. You hurt him, and me, and me through him. I could not repair what I had damaged with him, because of you." And the old hurt reared its ugly head. "And when you were sick, I tried to help. And when the aliens were rampant, I tried to move you away from the danger that follows both Clark and myself everywhere we go. And even when you were searching for me, when I was sick and dying, to try and kill me, I loved you, and I hid myself in shadows and spread false trails yet set no traps. And when you were dismantling my company around my ears, I loved you, and did not fight back. When you stole from me, again, not just money, but the best hope I had of survival, I loved you, and I did not set the wolves on you as I did the others. I had the means to disable the suit, even then. I could have had you killed, easily. I only did my best to separate you from Clark, without delay, because I knew I might not survive the surgeries, the clone organ donations, and that it would take years if it worked at all. You two were never meant to be together, you were not safe with him, or he with you, and you were killing him by inches just to spite me." Lex whispered. "But no, I do not love you now. Not anymore," Lex ended, and then his voice was steel. "You threatened my son, and you are nothing to me now." He raised the barrel, and felt no pleasure as Lana's face went blank with shock.

And Robin slammed into him from the side.

Lex staggered, snarled, fought him off, grabbed the slight, too-small boy up almost off of his feet, and snarled, "Tim!"

Then he saw a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. Gun. Lana.

Lana, with a gun.

_Damnit!_

He pulled Tim backwards, raising his own gun, but he knew he'd fire too late--

And that was when Batman slammed into Lana's back from above, ploughing her face-first into the concrete. The gun clattered away.

Lex stared at Bruce in shock for a moment.

"Where the hell did you come from, an airplane?!?" LexCorp was the tallest building in a twelve-block area, he couldn't have ziplined over and up from above -- there _was_ no above.

"You're welcome," Bruce grumbled.

"I am not fucking thanking you, you can go find another rooftop where she's isn't! I am killing her."

"The League is taking her into custody."

"The League can go to hell! She is either dying here, or dying in jail, and since I have no faith in the judicial system at this point, guess which option we're going with today!"

Batman was tracking the firearm Lex was waving about in his rage, and so help him, if Bruce tried to batarang the blasted thing out of his hand...

"You are not shooting her," Batman growled, adamantly.

Lex took a deep breath and counted to ten, and reminded himself that attempting to shoot Bruce in the head was probably a bad idea and that there were reasons why he didn't pull that shit, even if he was having trouble remembering them at the moment.

"You are not handing her over to the League. She has friends there. She will disappear. _Again._ And then come back to finish the job. I will not have her slitting Conner's throat because of your ineptitude."

"They will not--"

"Tess hates me, loves screwing with me, and will sympathize with Lana. So will Chloe, except that she would also throw her more considerable tech skills behind her. Oliver would give her a fucking medal and ask for an engraved invitation to the party. Is that enough of the main roster there, or need I continue?"

Batman was silent.

"None of them will think farther than their noses to realize what has already happened to Clark and Conner was her doing, and somehow I doubt that most of them will particularly care or otherwise worry that it _will_ happen again when they side with her. So the League is out. I'll turn her over to my security staff," Lex said. "I'm fairly confident that Tess and Oliver no longer have any moles in that department, at least."

"No. Too little oversight. I will take her to Arkham."

"Arkham is a revolving door for anybody with a sob story and a halfway-convincing lie. She'll be back out on the street faster than if you handed her to the League."

They glared at each other for awhile.

"Smallville," Batman offered.

Lex frowned at him.

"The police department there is used to dealing with metahumans, and they already know of her past with you."

"They threw me under the bus thinking I'd murdered her. She's duped them before."

"Exactly. They know that she gave false accusations against you. They will not listen to her lies this time."

Lex sucked in a breath. It was risky. Risky, especially since, once she hit the state level, she'd eventually run into the same corrupt part of the system and public officials that had let Lionel go free, but...

"Fine. But if something happens and she goes free, her life is forfeit, and I will also be holding you personally responsible. All bets off. And she has to stay in-state. No letting the Feds pull her out to be tried elsewhere. I want her to get the death penalty."

"What? But there's no proof that she's killed anyone," Tim said, craning his neck up at Lex.

"She killed Clark. Superman. That ought to be enough."

Tim's eyes went wide. "You told Conner--"

"I needed Conner away. The chances that Clark will survive that are actually astronomically low." Lex grimaced. "The blade only started glowing again after I pulled it out. It was reacting to Conner, not Clark. He was dead."

"He has come back from worse before," Batman stated.

"Only with nearly-divine alien intervention."

Batman frowned, then tied up Lana and gave Robin his official marching orders: "Escort Mr. Luthor to the Watchtower. He will want to see how the Kryptonians are faring."

In the time it took Lex to glance down at Tim, curl his lip, then glance back up to raise his voice in protest -- he knew perfectly well where watchtower was and he didn't need a pint-sized bodyguard to take him there -- Batman had vanished.

"Jerk," Lex grumbled. "Hate it when he does that." He holstered his sidearm.

"...You really aren't so bad, are you?" Tim said slowly.

" _Excuse me?_ " Lex said, turning and glaring down at Tim, offended in the extreme. Was he not paying attention when Lex had beaten him into the ground not five minutes earlier? Or during any of the other encounters he'd had with Young Justice?

"Well, when Miss Lang was going to shoot, why didn't you use me as a shield?" Tim asked quietly.

Lex stared down at him.

"I've got Kevlar body-armor," Tim pointed out.

Lex said, finally. "Obviously I wasn't thinking clearly."

Tim smiled.

"You brats think you're so damn smart," Lex growled. "I dare you to try that shit with me once you hit the age of majority. I will shoot you in the ass."

"I hope not, I bet that'd hurt."

Lex didn't care that Batman might be watching. He smacked Tim upside the head anyway.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tim was a little impressed and a little freaked that when Lex insisted on taking the elevator up, it recognized "Luthor, Alexander" as a validated user.

Lex just smirked. Gaining respect, one hacker to another? Ah, the simple pleasures in life.

Then he lost the smirk when the thought hit him of what state Conner was probably going to be in when he got to the top floor.

He steeled himself as the doors opened and he strode into the central area. Tess was by the main terminal, her back turned. Conner was hovering nervously over by the couches, moving around in little bursts of super-speed and unable to sit still. Oliver was over by the big window, showing Mia some trick with a bow.

Conner saw him first. Lex ignored everyone else as he headed towards him.

"DAD!" he yelled, throwing himself into Lex's arms. Lex grabbed him up in a hug by sheer reflex. He saw Tess' head whip around and her mouth drop open in shock before he mentally dismissed her completely, opting to focus on his son instead. Conner started babbling far too fast for Lex to make heads or tails of anything he was saying, but he didn't seem nearly as sad or distraught as he ought to be if...

Lex's eyes widened. He pulled away, caught Conner's head in his hands and stilled him.

"Conner, where is Clark?"

The next he was aware of his location, Conner was letting go of him and they were standing next to a gurney. Emil was standing off to the side, tiding things up on a tray, and Clark...

Clark was sitting upright, half-out of uniform, with his torso swathed in bandages. He turned, wincing a little at the motion, caught sight of Lex, and blushed a little sheepishly.

"Uh, hi," Clark said.

Lex swayed and nearly collapsed in relief. Then the anger took over, and he marched forward, slid up onto the bed, grabbed Clark by the shoulders, pulled him forward, then wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and kissed him.

Lex was shaking when he finally pulled away.

"Um," said Clark, having mostly just sat there through the kiss-to-the-forehead. He slowly curled an arm around Lex's waist and looked up at him with a slightly puzzled look on his face.

"Idiot. It's called dodging. Learn some basic goddamn self defense," Lex growled out hoarsely.

"...Ok?"

Lex was _not_ going to cry. He refused to.

Conner wavered a little by the edge of the bed, and both Clark and Lex each snagged an arm and pulled him in. the three of them ended up in what Lex recognized as the canonical 'Kent family group hug'.

He'd always wondered what one of those felt like. It felt kind of... nice.

Lex heard a discreet cough and they all finally looked up.

Dr. Emil Hamilton looked down his glasses at Clark. "This shouldn't bear repeating, but you are off hero duty for the foreseeable future. That magic poultice was a last-resort, and Zatanna warned me that it could not be used twice on the same injury. If I understood her correctly in how it works, you are probably going to be powerless for the duration it takes to heal completely as all of your body's resources go into healing you instead of anything else."

"But I feel fine now," Clark protested.

"That is the magic holding you together while you heal. You are _not_ fine, Clark. If you overdo it, the spell will unravel without enough of your body's vital life energies to sustain it, though don't ask me what those are -- I've not been able to get a straight answer out of Zatanna yet," Emil sighed. "Don't go anywhere near any mages or witchcraft, because if they dispel it you'll fall over half-dead, with your wound just as bad as it was when you arrived. This magic is all-or-nothing, apparently: it only stops when you're completely healed, and if it is broken at any point in-between, well..."

Clark grimaced, Lex felt worried, but Conner just smiled and looked a little excited.

"Does this mean you'll be spending all of Christmas with me?" Conner asked, bright-eyed.

Clark blinked at him, then glanced at Lex. "Um..."

"We'll be staying in the penthouse, and Clark will be on strict bedrest," Lex said firmly. When Clark looked like he was going to protest, Lex gave him the hairy eyeball.

"You learned that from mom," Clark griped, but he didn't argue.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post is here](http://clexmas.livejournal.com/50038.html)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Conner was baking cookies and other assorted baked goods with Martha in the kitchen, who had flown in as soon as she'd heard what had happened. Clark was taking it easy on the couch, making cranberry-popcorn strings with Lex, and they worked in relatively-companionable silence. They hadn't gotten a tree yet, but they'd cleared a corner for it in the penthouse's living room already. Lex assumed that they would probably end up having an argument about real versus artificial, and a fight over whether Clark was allowed out onto the street to go get a live conifer with them, given his penchant for running into deadly trouble on the streets of Metropolis. Lex didn't trust him not to throw himself in the middle of a mugging, or street fight, or anything else that he might see that needed a heroic foiling, despite being powerless and highly vulnerable at the moment and not well-trained in any of the various arts of self-defense.

So, yes -- Lex was not particularly looking forward to that. The only saving grace of the entire situation might be that, with Mrs. Kent here, Clark had an authority figure who just might be able to force him to not run out and get himself killed. Lex might actually survive this month without having to tie Clark up and toss him in a cell, after all.

And, speaking of problematic Kryptonians...

"I'm worried about Conner," Lex said quietly.

"He's three; it's not surprising that he bounced back so quickly. That's what kids do."

Lex only barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. "He is not three--"

"Yes, he is, Lex," Clark said patiently. "Technically two years and ten months, but... well. He may be really really smart, but he's only got about three years of actual life experience to work off of."

Lex was about to argue with Clark over that, when something that had been nagging at him made him pause and think for a moment.

"You never leave him to his own devices," Lex said slowly.

"Not as a rule, no. He needs adult supervision."

Lex frowned at that. "Timothy looks out for him during patrols...?"

"He's the most experienced of the Young Justice set, Conner looks up to him, he likes Conner, and he doesn't mind babysitting him."

"You really don't trust him," Lex said with a sinking feeling.

"Lex, trust isn't the issue here, ok? He has the mental and social development of a three year old. He follows people around like the proverbial baby duckling. He _likes_ the attention, and he kind of needs it at this stage." Clark finished one string, tied it off, and started on another. "...Why do you think mom snatched him up so quick? She was horrified to hear that he'd been growing up in a lab under Tess's supervision. So was I, once I realized exactly what that meant."

Lex set down his string and scrubbed at his face. "This isn't what I wanted to discuss," he half-mumbled.

Clark blinked at him. "What, then?"

"He almost killed Lana."

"Twice, technically."

Lex gritted his teeth. "The first time would have been an accident, unintentional. The second time he knew exactly what he was doing."

"I know, I saw the security footage from the roof."

How could Clark be so calm about this? "What part of 'Conner almost killed someone' doesn't have you up in arms shouting like a self-righteous--"

"--jerk?" Clark supplied.

"This doesn't worry you?" It sure as hell worried Lex.

"If you were three and someone had just killed Lillian right in front of you, and you were scared that they were going to kill Julian next, and you could kill them first to stop them from doing it, exactly how much time would you be spending thinking about the morality of strangling a murderer to death?"

Lex felt like he'd been punched in the stomach.

"Conner wanted her dead, but he listened to you. You talked him down."

"I shouldn't have had to do so."

"Lex... not everyone is like you. When you were twenty-one and you had to decide whether to save Lionel or not, and you did, maybe you didn't need help making that decision." Clark looked down at his hands. "But when I was seventeen, and Alicia had been murdered by Tim Westcott? I needed Lois to talk me down." He looked up at Lex, right in the eye. "I would have killed him, if Lois hadn't been there. So maybe he's immature, or maybe he's more like me than like you, but you were there, and you stopped him, and he's going to be ok."

Lex noted grimly that Clark hadn't brought up how Lex had killed Lionel in cold blood later. Even more scary was what Clark had just admitted about himself and what this meant when combined with Clark's vaunted longstanding 'no killing' policy. Lex knew Clark had killed Milton-Fine-the-BrainIAC-machine more than once, so robots, even intelligent ones, didn't seem to 'count'. He'd also killed -- or tried to kill -- the separated-from-human Doomsday, and Darkseid as well. So Clark didn't have a problem with killing evil monsters, either. Lex wasn't sure that that extended to evil _humans_ though, because Clark's actions certainly didn't seem to show that -- Clark had rescued and helped out Lionel before, as far as Lex was aware, but Clark had declared Lionel to be evil in a mindblowing lecture that Lex had overheard last year, and which Lex still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about. But if Clark wasn't lying to him now, then there seemed to be a sliding scale for death-to-all-humans somewhere in that alien brain of his that didn't even necessitate the use of red Kryptonite to reach, and... Lex mentally shook himself. This wasn't supposed to be about Clark. They could hash out that scary little gem later.

"Clark, that's not the point. Conner knows he can kill now," Lex pressed.

"So do I. It made me rethink a lot of things, once I was through the other side of the pain somewhat." Clark finished off yet another string and reached for another. "I had thought that you'd have maybe noticed this by now, Lex, but pretty much everybody is capable of killing under some set of circumstances. If you keep thinking like this it's not fair to Conner. It's almost as much a moot point, and just as unfair, as asking someone if they'd go back in time and kill Hitler if they got the chance."

"Would you?" Lex asked flippantly, because now he was starting to wonder if Clark's knee-jerk reaction really was a 'no.'

Clark gave him a look. "No, I would not."

Lex snorted as he picked his half-finished popcorn garland back up. "Really? Whyever not?" he asked flippantly.

"Because time travel always makes things worse."

Lex blinked, then slowly turned to look at Clark. He hadn't expected _that_.

"...'Always'?"

"Always."

Lex felt vaguely alarmed, because Clark had said that like he knew what he was talking about. From personal experience, and when the hell did he...? --Let alone the 'how' of it!

"Clark..."

"You stopped him, we're all ok. Lana is in jail. End of story. Move on."

Oh, so they were switching topics now, were they? Fine. He stored away that second bit of lunacy away for a rainy-day knock-down-drag-out screaming match, and got back to the problem of his son nearly committing homicide a few hours ago. "I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Lex accused.

"I think you're taking it _too_ seriously, and if you keep this up, acting like this, he's going to pick up on it and you're going to give him a complex."

"Clark--"

"Considering you're operating under a whole philosophy here of 'do as I say, not as I do'? You don't exactly have a lot of moral high ground to stand on," Clark pointed out. "And unless you're willing to try and also explain to him how modern-day soldiers and policemen manage to resolve the cognitive dissonance of killing someone versus protecting someone else and valuing life, I suggest you let it go until he's older. Because he's a hell of a lot smarter than I was at his age, biological or social or otherwise, and I don't doubt he'll ask you a lot of questions you can't or won't feel able, willing, or comfortable trying to answer."

Lex snarled under his breath.

"What?"

Right, Clark still didn't have his super-hearing at the moment. "I said, why can't that be your job? Aren't self-righteous platitudes and lectures on morality your _thing_?"

"Given how unhappy you are with what I've said on the subject up until now, I bet you'd be even less pleased with what I'd have to say to _him_ about it."

"Fine," Lex grumbled. "What about your mother? --You can't be serious," he ended at Clark's uneasy look.

"Lex, when Nixon grabbed and threatened me way back when, dad did manage to get his gun away from him at one point. If it had been mom who had been the one to confront him, what do you think she would have done?"

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Lex. The pentultimate stay-at-home mother, loving farmer's wife? "She would have--"

Then he stalled out as his brain caught up to him and reminded him of some _other_ relevant facts: state senator, lawyer's education, turned down running the family law firm to marry Jonathan. Former Metropolis girl. More than capable of hold her own with Lionel when she had once worked for him -- alongside him, rather. Red Queen, with a Martian Manhunter as her lapdog-agent, and some of those missions...

Lex drew a quick breath and stared at Clark. Clark, for his part, shrugged and merely said, "Just because two people are married and love each other very much doesn't mean that they _agree_ on everything."

Lex squirmed uncomfortably in place and wished that this wasn't so important that he couldn't just give in to the luxury of switching topics to something where he wasn't in way over his head. He did not consider morality his strong suit; that was partly why Clark was supposed to be his nemesis: to keep him in line. Then something occurred to him. "This wouldn't happen to be part of why Jonathan does not demonize those who kill in self-defense, even when he himself refused to kill, would it?" Lex asked, because he doubted that even Jonathan Kent, Mr. King Of The Angry Platitude Speech himself, would be _that_ hypocritical.

When Clark nodded, Lex grimaced, then sighed and ran a hand over his skull. "Well, we have to do _something_." Lex persisted. "Given Conner's level of intelligence, he's going to need or want to talk about what happened sooner or later, and he will have difficult questions for us regardless of whether we are prepared for them or not. We need to talk this through and reach a consensus about what we'll say to be ready for him -- even if we don't necessarily completely agree or show a united front," he added uncomfortably. "Even if we have to give him competing views, he ought to understand that that's ok, if we present it as such. But we do need to agree at least somewhat on what ideas we expose him to, and how to frame them, if only so we know what he's been told."

"Great, because when I think of talking to Conner about morality, what I'm really wanting to do is damage control," Clark said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'd much rather explain to him what everyone I know, met, or have even just briefly heard about thinks on the subject and why, and what I think and why, and let him mull things over and decide for himself. I promised him once that I wouldn't keep things from him, and I meant it, Lex. He won't trust either of us if we leave things out; he'll just get suspicious about what we don't want him to know, what we're keeping from him, and why, and the first thing he will think is _not_ that we know what we're doing and that it's for benign purposes because we care about _him_. Believe me, he does better with more information, not less."

Now that just burned. _Why didn't I ever get that consideration from you?_ Lex snarled mentally. And he hardly cared whether it was because Clark thought that courtesy automatically extended to anyone blood-related or not -- he had a right to his feelings and at this point, a damn-near monopoly on rights to that information, as well. Hell, he could write a thesis on the subject outlining the whys and wherefores. ...Well, if Clark wasn't holding back information from Conner, letting Lex know that was a tactical error in the extreme: Lex would just find a way to get Conner to ask everything he wanted to know for him. But...

"You're the one who keeps saying Conner's only three. Do you really think a three-year-old is capable of making that kind of self-determination?" Lex sneered, while privately freaking out a little -- it wasn't as though he could really stop Clark from talking with Conner about this particular topic, not without half-killing one or the pair of them. "What if he makes the wrong decision?"

"You mean, how are you going to change his mind for him if he doesn't agree with you and won't do what you tell him to do?"

Lex's hackles rose. Lex would be _damned_ if he would ever treat his own son the way Lionel had treated him. He'd rather shoot himself permanently dead first. "That is _not_ \--"

"--what you mean to do, but that's effectively what he will see and hear if you act that way. It's just a warning, Lex; I'm not accusing you," Clark explained, holding his hands up in mock surrender, half-made garland dangling loosely from curled fingers. "He remembers mirror-Lionel, at least from the second-time-around, and he's as touchy about the possibility of being manipulated as you are, maybe even more than you, and that's saying something."

"And what will you do if he decides that murdering half the human race and taking over the world is a great idea?" Lex demanded snappishly.

"What, assuming it's not just some mind-control or bodyswap thing?' Clark didn't even seem to need to think about it. "Probably what I'd do with anybody else who isn't foaming at the mouth: fight him to a standstill, corral him into someplace remote, then let loose. Wrestle him into submission, tie him up, sit on him, and talk him out of it. Call you in if necessary -- what, you think you couldn't convince him it's a bad idea?" Clark snorted. "I know you don't want to take over the world, or let anyone else do it, and you've got your reasons; if you think you're right, you ought to be able to make your case to anybody who's even the least bit rational without having to resort to guns and Kryptonite if you can just get them to listen to you long enough! Unless you think you're wrong, can't convince him of it, and are afraid that _he'll_ be the one doing the convincing instead," Clark challenged.

"...Don't smirk, Clark, it's creepy on you," Lex replied.

"Look, Lex, he's a good kid, you know this. And it's not like he needs to decide right away. That's one of the reasons he's a hero-in-training, and not out in the streets in the thick of things every night. He shouldn't run into those sorts of situations very often -- not anytime soon, anyway. If you want to be angry at someone about it, take it out on me for not being more careful about Lana, ok?"

Lex wanted to do just that, but he couldn't -- not in good conscience. Lana was a weakness and a blind spot for both of them; Lex had known that for some time. He was just as culpable for the blame as Clark was, if not moreso, because _he_ at least damn well knew better. But, damnit -- what good was he if he couldn't protect his own son?

Clark leaned back, stretched, and sighed. "Look, can't we just talk about something happy and Christmas-y? I mean, it is December, and we are right in the middle of decorating," Clark complained, gesturing with the garland. "I mean, geez, you're so doom-and-gloom I'm starting to think we ought to send the popcorn back to the kitchen and ask mom to burn it black. You'd think somebody had almost died, or something."

"You _did_ almost--!" Lex clamped his mouth shut and tried to take deep calming breaths. He succeeded at the 'deep' part, at least.

And then he was distracted by a big green furball slamming into his lap.

"Flowerrrrrrrs!" it exclaimed.

Lex quickly raised the needle above his head to get it and most of the garland out of the way as he was tackled farther back into the couch with a soft 'oof!', then tried to resituate said furball on his lap one-handed.

"No, Garfield -- stop," Lex said as the miniature shapeshifter of all things animalia grabbed at the garland string with both hands. Gar got it caught around his claws, and Lex grimaced and started to disentangle him. "Let go, don't eat that--!" Too late, he was already munching away around the string.

"Those are not flowers," Lex tried, given the young boy's earlier exclamation. Garfield just looked up at him with big fur-lined green eyes and blinked at him as he continued munching. Lex sighed and gave up.

"Don't know why I bother," Lex said grouchily, holding out the end of the string so that Clark could cut the needle away with the scissors he was now holding. "At least don't eat the string," Lex warned, tugging at the ends dangling out of Gar's mouth.

"Kkkkkay," Gar said around a mouthful of cranberries and popcorn.

"Oh, so _now_ you listen to me, I see how it is," Lex said, sounding annoyed to uphold general principles because he had to, but softening it by petting Gar on the head absently, leaning back into the cushions and relaxing a little.

"Mmmmm," said Gar.

Clark chuckled quietly before reaching forward and tugging at the string himself. "Eat like a person, Gar," he said, and he managed to exchange the half-munched-on string for one of the bowls of popcorn. "One at a time," Clark cautioned as he handed it over into Gar's lap.

"Kaaaay!" Gar said happily, carefully snagging one bit of popcorn by the claws and doing just that.

"Hey! Why does he listen to you?" Lex exclaimed.

"Food!" said Gar.

"He's well-trained," Clark added.

Lex gave him a look. "You aren't."

"Well, yeah, of course not -- Mom's had me longer," Clark replied with a grin. Lex rolled his eyes.

When Lex reached for a piece from the bowl himself, Gar yelped and whined, "No, Clark gave! Mine!" batting his hand away.

"Tch, that's _my_ popcorn from _my_ kitchen you just gave away," he huffed at Clark. "I get no respect from you younglings. No respect," he growled mock-angrily, hugging Gar closer and briskly scrubbing his hands up and down Gar's sides. Gar giggled and squirmed.

Then his head popped up and he twitched his nose. "Cookies!" he growl-grinned, wriggling out of Lex's grip. Lex pulled the bowl out of the way and let him go.

Gar shifted into a cat-form and raced into the kitchen. Shortly after, Conner walked out balancing a tray with glasses of milk and a plate piled high with sugar cookies, Gar dancing around his heels. After awhile, Gar shifted back to human to gain a little more height as a person than he had as a four-footed feline.

"First batch, so it's lucky and the best," Conner declared, setting the tray down on the coffee table and carefully shoving the other bowls and garland-making errata to one side. Gar was literally bouncing at this point and once it was down he launched himself at it, but was intercepted by a half-human hybrid's arm wrapped around his chest scooping him up.

"Uh-uh," Conner chided. Gar frowned angrily up at him, up until Conner said: "Hands!" and Gar's eyes widened for a moment.

"Awwwww," said Gar, looking dejected.

"Come here, Garfield, there's a sink in the kitchen," Martha called from the doorway, wiping her own hands on a towel and looking amused. "You can have some cookies after that."

"Yay!" Garfield yelled, shifting to cat again and racing into the kitchen like a streak of green.

Conner rolled his eyes as Martha laughed. "Well, it is faster, and he is going to wash after," she said with amusement in her eyes, turning around to follow the little metahuman back in with a matronly smile tugging at her lips.

Lex tilted his head at Clark, wondering what that was all about.

"Hands to feet to hands?" Clark supplied.

Lex got it immediately. "My floors are perfectly clean!" he protested as he reached forward and got himself a cookie and some milk.

"So clean you can eat off them?" Conner snarked.

Lex refused to stick his tongue out at his son; he would need a good example from _somewhere_ , after all, and now he wasn't entirely sure Clark or Mrs. Kent was it.

"Gar's too young to figure out relative cleanliness one way or the other right now," Clark sighed.

"And half the time he forgets when he's shifted, or that he's shifted at all," Conner added around a mouthful of cookie. "He needs to learn to pay attention," he said with an air of parroting something he had heard many times before.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Clark and Lex chimed in, one a rejoinder, the other in only lightly-veiled disgust.

"Oooh, stereo," Conner grinned, but only after gulping it all down with a generous helping of milk. Lex figured that it was better than nothing: snark with obedience more welcome than a lack of any obedience at all.

Martha walked back in, carrying Garfield on her hip like a pro. He pushed himself towards Conner once he saw him, and she set him down on Conner's lap. Conner took it in stride, like there was nothing more natural than for him to have a giggling green kid on his lap, feeding him bite-sized cookie pieces and helping him with a sippy cup of milk. Lex had to felt a lump in his throat at the kindly brotherly behavior. Then he blatantly lied to himself, telling himself that it was just that he'd swallowed too much sugar cookie at once.

Then Lex felt a little tense-relaxed as Martha took a seat in a nearby chair. Since his 'return from the dead', they had had an uneasy unspoken truce: Lex didn't bring up anything about her work as the Red Queen, and she didn't bring up his nemesis status, his irregular villainous behavior, or how he tried to subjugate, control, or kill her eldest son on a rather distressingly frequent basis, now or in the past. Lex had a feeling that he got the better end of that deal.

Apparently, that was about to change.

"So, I've been thinking..." Martha started, steepling her fingers.

"Always a really bad idea," Conner grinned. "--For other-people-not-us, I mean!" he added quickly when Lex glared at him. He shrank into his chair a bit.

Lex found Conner's behavior rather disturbing. He really didn't have the best relationship with Mrs. Kent anymore -- it was rather adversarial in a highly subtle way, actually -- but while he might entertain notions of homicidal aims for her at times, he would never be _rude_. His mother had raised him right. Clearly he needed to have a talk with Conner about manners.

"You see, Conner and I have been talking about his recent behavior, and what he wants for Christmas," Martha continued.

Lex looked between Conner and Mrs. Kent. It also had not escaped him earlier how very oddly Conner had been acting on the roof, and Lex wasn't about to reward him for attempting to act like a villain -- far from it. He couldn't think of any good reason for Conner to do so, nor had he any idea as to whatever convoluted reasoning his son could have used to come to thinking he should do something like that in the first place. This 'playing at villainy' before everything had gone so horribly wrong was frankly a large part of what had been worrying Lex so much. Lex wasn't entirely sure how to go about punishing Conner for it, though, if that was the best method of handling the situation.

"Apparently, the two are rather closely linked," she ended.

"I see," Lex said neutrally, glancing over and watching Conner look slightly embarrassed. _And what does villainy have in common with a Christmas present for Conner?_ he wondered.

Martha smiled at him. "So I offered to help by talking to the two of you about it, since Conner hasn't had a lot of experience with planning something and then seeing it through and I think a more direct approach might be best, given the circumstances."

Lex turned back to her, frowning. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he said, trying to put together what little he had gotten out of Clark earlier. Something about Conner planning and plotting something, but Clark hadn't really been specific at all. It must have had something to do with getting them together in the same place, because of the emails and the remote surveillance, given the timing... but what did that have to do with Conner trying to be villainous? Lex was drawing a blank.

Martha leaned back in her chair. "Well, I think that the best thing to do in this situation would be for Conner to not continue to do things as he was, and instead behave as he normally does from now on, for reasons I have talked out with him," Lex saw Clark relax a bit out of the corner of his eye, "and for the two of you to give Conner what he wants for Christmas this year."

"All right," said Lex, easily.

"Hk!" went Clark, simultaneously.

Interesting. Lex hadn't thought it possible for Kryptonian biology to let Clark choke on a mouthful of milk, but he certainly seemed to be doing the closest approximation he was capable of, if not.

"I, um... mom?" Clark asked weakly.

"Yes, dear?" Martha asked sweetly.

"You, uh, you _want_...? I mean, you think it'd, uh, be a good idea for... us... to...?" Clark was turning quite red as he stammered, and his voice started hitting the higher registers near the end, and Lex began to wonder how horrifically indulgent it could possibly be. This was Conner they were talking about, and he'd never seemed to want anything unreasonable from him before. Either of them. And Lex felt he was certainly more than capable of producing, obtaining, or otherwise procuring anything that Conner might need or want, so what was the problem?

"I think it'd be for the best," she smiled, laying her arms lightly along the armrests.

"Right. Sure. Ok, then," Clark squeaked, looking anywhere but at Lex.

Lex frowned. Clark had alluded earlier to knowing what Conner had wanted, having overheard his plans at some point, but surely it couldn't be that bad -- he would have talked it out with Conner before ever getting to the point of bringing it up with Lex, otherwise.

Conner, on the other hand, looked absolutely ecstatic, and Gar picked up on his good mood, growling away happily and kicking his feet.

"Well, then, it's settled," Martha said, standing and running her hands down the front of her dress, smoothing it down. "I have a few things to do in D.C. tomorrow, so a stop-over in Connecticut shouldn't be too much trouble. We'll all fly out and take care of it then."

Well, that had been fairly odd. What was in Connecticut that Conner could want? But for the rest of the day Martha and Clark studiously avoided talking about and otherwise steered the subject clear from anything other than Christmas preparations, decorating the penthouse, and the planning of other assorted seasonal activities.

Lex wasn't stupid; he knew when he was being maneuvered into something. But for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what.

In retrospect, the one thing he should have done, which he hadn't even contemplated trying, was to simply ask outright, _What is it that you want me to do?_

~*~*~*~*~*~

Well, Lex had certainly fallen right into it.

And, when the time came, he really could say nothing else but "Yes."

After all, it only made sense. Conner would be happier for it. He'd have a more stable life. Both Lex and Clark would have an easier time looking out for him. Conner would be able to stay with Lex. Clark wouldn't have to worry about his cycling issues with Lois anymore, or be troubled about extra apartments and making rent. Lex wouldn't be quite so lonely anymore. And it wasn't as though Lex couldn't afford it.

It could work. Maybe.

Clark was nervous the entire way through it. He blushed unbelievably red before giving Lex a quick, chaste kiss.

Lex's lips still tingled a bit.

Martha recorded everything on her cameraphone.

Gar ate all the daisy petals off the stems in the bouquet.

Conner valiantly tried to be solemn about it when he handed over the rings, but his grin could have lit up a stadium.

Perry White, who was apparently Martha's tag-along date to the affair -- how weird was that? -- made a comment about how "a demand for a Planet staff member to accompany him on important business" really wasn't a good cover story for an under-the-radar marriage ceremony when Lex specified exactly which staff member he wanted in the same memo, and Lex sighed when he realized how generic that order from above, which he'd made to cover Clark's absence from work while he healed, really had been if it could cover even _this_.

So, Lex Luthor and Clark Kent. Married. Because Martha Kent had told them to.

Stranger things had happened, but this one was pretty far up the list.

When Clark reminded Lex that he needed to draw up a prenuptial agreement that they could sign, for both their protection, Lex had to mentally slap himself, because it should be impossible for Clark, talking about dry legal documents, to somehow come across as... sweet.

Well, given Lex's track record, a prenup would be a good idea. At least the odds were probably pretty good that Lex wouldn't need rescuing from an irate, murderous, soon-to-be ex-wife, since Clark was his husband.

Lex absently wondered if Martha and Garfield would be moving into the penthouse with him and Clark and Conner. It hadn't really come up.

They'd left in the early morning and were back in Kansas the same day, home in time for dinner.

It was surreal.

Especially when it came time for bed.

Lex stayed up a bit later, lagging behind while Clark showered. When Lex finally entered the room, he discovered Clark already in bed, asleep, with half the covers kicked off.

Apparently Clark slept in boxers.

Lex slept in the nude.

Usually. Somehow that didn't feel very appropriate, now, so he ended up sliding under the covers wearing both underwear and silk pajamas, top and bottom.

It was too easy.

Clark liked the right-hand side of the bed, Lex liked the left. They hadn't even had to talk about it.

With Clark unable to be Superman in the near-term as he healed, and Lex having no inclination to try any villainy before the New Year rolled around, they didn't really have much to fight about, especially since neither of them were willing to dig up old arguments just for the sake of having an excuse to yell at each other.

This left them with basically no recourse but to fall back on old habits -- _very_ old habits -- of movie nights and fencing lessons and long talks over coffee, the simpler times from when they'd first met.

It only took Lex three days to realize that _this_ was the true trap Martha had sprung on him. And he'd fallen for it, been snapped up, swallowed down, and now was stuck deep inside the steel belly of the beast. At this point, if he wanted out, he'd basically be hard put to do so. It would be like trying to cut through the walls of his cage with a laser in the dark, and he'd surely end up losing limbs and other vital parts of himself in the process. And this didn't even touch upon the the internal damage he would have inflicted upon Clark to do so, by the time he was done: Clark didn't do things by half-measures, especially his emotions, and Lex was beginning to get the feeling that Clark had never stopped caring about Lex in the first place.

Damn them.

But Conner was around, always there, always cheerful, always happy to see him, be with them both. Both his dads. He'd started out tentatively calling Clark 'dad' and when he hadn't been corrected, he'd gotten bolder.

When Lex thought about it, Clark had been acting more like a father than an older brother to Conner for quite some time. It had probably been Lois who had kept him from admitting what he'd really wanted. Lex knew this because he recognized Clark's response for what it was: Clark's reaction to more time with Conner was basically the same as his own.

Conner was the better for it. Clark didn't seem the worse for it. Lex...

Lex was too smart to not want to struggle against the bars of his self-made cage that he was slowly building, and then been unceremoniously shoved into and locked shut.

Unfortunately, he was also too smart to ignore the fact that his cage was rather well-appointed, and a niggling, very seductive voice deep inside kept asking him why he would even want to think of giving this up in the first place. Because, was it really so bad a thing to be unable to escape his confines, if he never really wanted to leave? Were those locks really on the outside, or in?

But of course, it just had to go horribly wrong. Lex knew that.

Yet somehow the universe kept putting it off like it was taunting him in a sadistic version of keep-away. _Hey, here's a great idea -- let's make it that much better so that he has that much farther to fall!_ It made him uncomfortably overwhelmingly nervous at times.

Lex tried to enjoy it all while he could: ice skating and trips to the park to see the Christmas lights and roasted nuts served piping-hot from a street vendor. Teaching Conner Christmas carols and introducing him to seasonal TV specials. Window-shopping and actual gift-shopping. They ended up getting a live tree, after all, and setting it up without incident. Stockings hung from a mantelpiece.

They still kept sleeping in the same bed, but sometimes Clark rolled over in the night and cuddled Lex in his sleep. Lex kept wearing significantly more clothes to bed than he was used to.

He started getting antsy as Christmas approached and passed, somehow without incident. He felt similarly when the New Year rolled around.

He stole a kiss from Clark under mistletoe, and again when the ball dropped.

They'd all stayed in both nights, eschewing the corporate parties-that-weren't for more intimate company.

Lex had to go back to work on the second. Conner started attending school on the third, and Clark went back to work the same day after dropping him off at the local public high school in the morning. They'd all three sat down and decided after a long discussion that a) private school kids sucked and b) private school couldn't offer him anything more advanced education-wise that he couldn't get more and better of from private tutors. This led to the conclusion that the whole reason of having Conner go to school at this point was to make friends and socialize: to better understand the people around him, what they did and felt and said and why, and how to talk and interact with them. He could learn university-level subject matter at home without even needing tutors, and did -- he liked it that way. Lex still lectured him on history from time-to-time, though, and Clark was more than happy to help him with his math.

Superman didn't show up in the national news for another week, and he had only got involved in helping dig people out of a mudslide in the Philippines. It took Lex awhile to determine -- without having to ask outright because that would be embarrassing -- that Clark had actually finished healing and gotten his powers back a week and a half before that.

Lex noted that there were at least three minor heroes now operating in Metropolis who were taking care of the petty crime in the area. None of them were Clark in a new disguise.

When Lex started to worry that he was going to get soft, he complained to Clark about it... and Clark told him he'd work something out, and could Lex give him a day?

That made Lex uneasy and borderline testy, because how the hell was he supposed to pick a fight with Clark when Clark _wasn't pushing back?_

Sure enough, the next day, Lex's worst fears were confirmed when a different hero showed up, hovering outside his office window.

Apparently, Clark had misunderstood him when he'd said that someone needed to provide a better workout because someone else was plateauing at their current level of skill. The implication was supposed to be that Clark needed to work on his self-defense, not that Lex needed someone better to effectively 'spar' with.

He'd scoffed at the "Wonder Woman" character, clad in something more revealing than many two-piece bikinis he'd seen -- and how exactly was that supposed to be armor when it exposed more than it protected? -- who claimed to be an Amazonian warrior from Themyscira -- not Themiscyra, because apparently she couldn't even spell properly, as well.

Then she'd systematically proceeded to destroy his normal security systems, his automatic targeting lasers, his killer robots, and in rapid unflinching succession literally everything he could throw at her _with a smile on her face_ , at which point it had stopped being funny.

When all was said and done, Lex had been about ready to try strangling her with his bare hands if need be -- except that when she approached him after their no-holds-barred battle she'd expressed nothing but pure delight at the proceedings. Apparently she'd enjoyed herself, thought it was wonderful fun. She wanted more, better, and was hoping for a rematch in the future, and for all his efforts, try as he might, Lex could not see her as being anything but completely honest and earnestly meaning what she was saying, almost respectful in her requests. She apparently lived for battle, wanted to improve, wanted _him_ to improve because she liked a challenge, was more than willing to point out strengths and weaknesses as she saw them to help out, and Lex found himself liking her despite knowing that he really ought to do better by hating her instead.

He managed to wrangle a promise out of her to teach Clark some martial skills as part of their 'battle-practice' deal, though. Lex wasn't about to let Clark escape a good thrashing, too.

Lex actually found it more difficult explaining away the large explosions from that afternoon to the rest of the city.

But the worst of it came when Clark accosted him in the living room one night when Conner was at a sleepover with Tim at Wayne Manor. He'd strode in all impatience and frustrated anger, just like the old angry confrontations he'd had storming the Luthor mansion library, and surreptitiously dropped a stack of file folders on an end table with a heavy thud.

Lex braced himself, lips starting to curl back from his teeth in anticipation of a horrific onslaught, and Clark proceeded to exceed all expectations.

In completely the wrong way.

Clark started with something he had heard -- a rumor. Then he talked about how he'd found out that it was in-part true, and which parts were which. Then he'd talked about how it was all horribly wrong and how Lex had to stop. And why. There was a logical sequence. A buildup. He had points of contention and reasons for them. Good reasons. He had questions for Lex and he wanted them answered. He wanted to know why Lex had done as he did. He had ideas for alternative options where he felt continuation or a wind down was more appropriate than a complete halt and immediate shutdown of operations.

He didn't let Lex stonewall him, or distract him, or lead him astray with personal attacks. He called Lex on every lie, half-truth, omission, and vaguely implied response. He didn't let up. He assumed very little and when Lex insisted on secrecy or refused to respond, Clark would not be swayed and would not move on to the next topic until Lex gave in and talked to him about it.

Clark didn't raise his voice once. He didn't threaten, either.

It was completely insane.

Lex enjoyed himself far more in their argument that night than any other confrontation he'd ever had with Clark in or out of the Superman uniform.

He'd been just on the verge of drifting off to sleep when that minor revelation flitted across his mind out of nowhere, and it had him sitting bolt upright, wide-awake, horrified and desperately reviewing how he'd come to that conclusion to try and find fault in it somehow, except that he couldn't.

That was when Lex knew he was really in trouble.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Are you happy, dad?" Conner asked him one night after dinner, when Clark was out doing Superman work on the other side of the world.

"I suppose so. Why?"

"It's just... I thought if you and dad... other-dad... if you... I just thought that maybe you would..." he trailed off, looking a little forlorn.

"Conner, why did you want Clark and me to get together?"

"Because I've been known to believe in something after the whole world tells me I'm wrong," Conner said quietly, staring out the window at all the tiny, cold and glittering lights.

...Well, at least now Lex knew where his Warrior Angel collection had gone.

Lex sighed and gathered him up in a hug from behind, watching over the city with him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

After he and Clark were found out -- their marriage-ship discovered and accidentally gossiped to all and sundry by _Cat Grant_ of all people, how embarrassing was that! -- and they weathered that shitstorm together somehow without capsizing, Lex finally came to realize that whatever this was wasn't going away.

Against all odds and rational expectation, they'd made a somewhat stable life for themselves. Clark had assured Lex that Superman wasn't going anywhere, that Metropolis was his home and that he would still personally deal with any major threats to their city, but that other cities had higher crime rates and fewer heroes than Metropolis now, so he would be conducting his nighttime patrols elsewhere. Incredibly, Superman's workload was lighter in general as more heroes stood up to do good works than villains appeared to try and tear them down, and nowadays Clark spent most of his time helping put out fires and mitigate natural disasters rather than any villain-thwarting.

So of course Lex just had to push his luck.

After all, why not? Lex had a family, a son who loved him. Why not a loving spouse?

More than once he caught himself daydreaming during a LexCorp managerial meeting, coming up with elaborate, intricate, clever, completely unworkable plans for what essentially amounted to more-or-less 'tricking' Clark into loving him, falling in love with him. Sweet, terrifying, sappy, obsessive, romantic, jealous, unconditional, never-let-him-go-ever-again love.

They were already married anyway, so why _couldn't_ Lex have him?

Unfortunately, even Lex knew that one couldn't simply use cold logic to argue someone into feeling an emotional response. ...Well, perhaps anger or frustration at being wrong, or smug pride at being right. But love?

No, this was going to require romance. And wooing. There would have to be wooing.

Lex was an expert at getting women into bed, but he didn't have a lot of experience with men. ...Well, make that no experience, if he didn't believe Oliver's lies about one drunken bender he'd had in college when he'd actually blacked out. He also had to admit, with brutal honesty, that he also didn't have a lot of experience at keeping those women around once he'd slept with them, let alone happy, but Lex was pretty sure that Clark wasn't going anywhere, and he'd forgiven Lex's mistakes before, so Lex figured more than likely had multiple chances to get it right if he screwed it up. Not that he was planning on screwing up.

But really, the main crux of the issue was this: all Clark seemed to know about romance was what he'd learned at Lex's knee, way back from Smallville when he'd been infatuated with Lana and Lex had been stupid enough to try and help him pursue the girl. This meant that Lex had a distinct advantage in knowing what knowledge Clark had.

It also meant the blatant disadvantage of Clark probably being patently unable to recognize any romantic gesture outside of what he had been taught, and that had been a pretty small, sad and downright pathetic subset of the extant possibilities, unfortunately.

So, it was fairly simple: Lex was going to have to get creative, and maybe a little blunt.

He decided to be methodical about it and plan his moves out carefully and well in-advance.

The easiest thing to start with was listing off all the various date and date-like things that Lex could think of that Clark might like, that would also be within Clark's budget -- because Clark was still being adamant about splitting things fifty-fifty as much as possible, and Lex didn't want to worry about trying to be a gentleman and instead getting into an argument over a check. That would just kill the mood.

Once he had a good showing after his brainstorming, he read through the whole list.

Watching movies. A walk in the park. Eating out. Rearranging their schedules to have lunch together. Talking about work. Talking about interesting current events. Driving someplace interesting. Driving nowhere, just exploring. Going to the museum. Attending a sporting event. Cooking together. Listening to live music at a concert hall. Attending a small, intimate party with just a few friends. Horseback riding. Picnics. Dancing. Going out for a cup of coffee.

Lex reread the list again and cursed. He'd already done all these things with Clark, many times over, way back when they'd been trying to be friends! How the hell was he supposed to get Clark's attention doing things they'd already done, when all the best things he could think of as intimate dates to spend time with Clark wouldn't be able to stand out as any different from anything that came before?

Lex reread the list. He thought about how many of those times he had been the one to invite Clark along, and how many of those times Clark had invited him. He frowned to himself as he tallied it up.

Lex reread the list. Then something occurred to him.

...If he'd still had any hair left on his head, it wouldn't have lasted long -- he'd have pulled it all back out again.

_Goddamnit!!!_

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex strode into the Daily Planet in a very foul mood.

"Kent!" he yelled, scanning the top floor. "Where is he?!" he turned and demanded of one of the staff reporters, who cringed away from him. _Useless!_

Lex stormed the main bullpen and finally caught sight of him slouching and shuffling over by Lane. He immediately made a beeline for him, fisted the front of Clark's button-down shirt, and pulled Clark after him, ignoring his feeble protests. He dragged Clark into one of the very soundproof file rooms and slammed the door shut after him, then locked it.

" _What the hell?!_ " Lex yelled at Clark, rounding on him.

"Isn't that _my_ line?" Clark demanded, straightening to full height. "What are you doing barging in here like that while I'm at work?"

"I own the place, I can do what I want in it!" Lex snarled back.

"I want a straight answer, Lex," Clark said imperiously, stepping close and towering over him.

"So do I!" Lex yelled back. "Why the hell didn't you tell me!?!"

"Tell you _what?_ You stomp in here, acting like a two-year-old--"

Lex grabbed Clark, slammed him back against one of the file cabinets, and shoved his tongue into Clark's mouth, kissing him _hard_.

Clark froze. Then he twitched. Then he leaned forward and... shoved Lex off of him, out to arm's length, wide-eyed and blank-faced.

It dawned on Lex that he may have made a slight tactical error in his choice of approach.

"You-- you--" Clark repeated, staring not quite through him. Clark was shivering, and twitching, and did not look the least bit happy at all. Lex tried not to wince at the hurt or the pain -- Clark was clenching his shoulders a little too hard.

"I don't have to take this from you," Clark said hoarsely, shoving him further backwards to accentuate the point. "I-- Chloe-- she--" He twitched again. "You don't get to do this to me. She-- no. Not again."

"Chloe's kissed you in a backroom before?" was what Lex got from that.

"Assaulted. Grabbed. Kissed." Clark said blankly, like he couldn't classify it properly. "Wasn't expecting... acted like nothing... didn't mean... after..." Clark stated without inflection, and Lex realized that Clark wasn't quite all there at the moment, and that maybe some of his previous relationships had left him far more damaged than Lex had ever imagined.

"Clark..." Lex said slowly, raising a hand to Clark's cheek, but he flinched away from Lex's touch.

Lex's blood went cold.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut, took a shuddering breath, and after another shiver-twitch, spasmodically let go of Lex's shoulders and took two steps back.

No. This wasn't right. Lex had been sure. He couldn't be this wrong--

"Don't do that again," Clark whispered, eyes opening again, downcast, but in his eyes Lex saw...

" _I'm not wrong_ ," Lex breathed, warmth flooding back into him again, because in Clark he saw anger, panic, hurt, shame. _...Shame?_ What? No! Why--? This would not do!

Clark's head snapped up at what Lex had said and he echoed blankly, "...Not wrong?" but Lex wasn't about to give Clark any time to think -- he just stepped forward well into Clark's personal space and kissed him again, far more gently this time, not forcing it.

Clark tried to back away, but Lex followed him, curling his hands up to cradle Clark's head.

Clark froze up on him again, but this time he had fine tremors going. Then Lex felt wetness at his fingertips and, startled, he broke away.

Clark was crying and he didn't even look like he was aware of it.

"Stop it," Clark said shakily.

Lex smiled thinly, then leaned forward, molding his body right up against him. "No, Clark, I won't--"

Lex's head ached and he flinched reflexively as he suddenly found himself half-sitting half-sprawled at an uncomfortable backwards angle over two boxes stacked unevenly, his wrists held above his head against the wall encompassed by one large hand. Another firm hand with a steel-vise grip on his jaw. Clark was straddling him, kneeling above and looking down on him, absolutely enraged.

There was madness threatening in the back of Clark's eyes, and Lex didn't know how to fix this.

Clark leaned down, inches from Lex's face. "You sick bastard. Getting off on this," he gritted out, glancing down at Lex's crotch for a moment with a derisive snarl. Lex froze. "I don't know how you found out. I don't particularly _care_. But if you really believe that knowing this gives you power over me, you're _insane_."

Lex couldn't help but flinch at the last. His mental health was not up for debate, damnit. He tried to move but Clark held him steady, unable to even squirm much.

Clark's eyes were clear cold sparks. He was shivering; Lex felt it through Clark's restraining hands. Clark leaned in closer, looking him straight in the eye. "I am not weak. I will not let you toy with what I feel, take advantage of it, and _use_ me."

"So, just to be clear, this is not you having a problem with homosexuality, this is just you being delusional about my motives for kissing you," Lex stated more than asked.

Lex grimaced as Clark moved his hand from his jaw to his throat and shoved him farther backwards, head and neck now fully-flush against the wall.

"Fuck, Clark. Who is it that you don't trust? You? Me? Everyone?" Lex protested, getting angry. They hadn't fought for weeks, almost months, and now this? Where the hell was this coming from?

" _What the hell do you want from me?_ " Clark spat, lips pulling back from his teeth. "Was all this really just an _act?_ Just to get close and--?"

"Air would be a nice start -- I'm not into breathplay!" Lex growled. "I'm physically attracted to you, but you're sure as hell making it difficult to feel that way right now!"

Clark went expressionless, but he loosened his grip from around Lex's throat. Lex hoped he wouldn't have bruises -- he didn't think Clark had been holding him that hard, and he'd exaggerated a great deal about the pressure, but he wasn't feeling very comfortable about his safety in Clark's presence at the moment and he wanted some space. Clark was far too on edge over this. Lex resisted the urge to inform him that he might need a little therapy. Maybe a freighterload or two.

"Liar!" Clark snarled at him.

Lex kicked out and wrenched at his wrists, for all the good it did him.

"Idiot!!" he yelled. "What the hell is this? Do I really have some uncontrollable meteor-freak ability where prolonged close proximity to me drives people to homicidal madness?! GET THE HELL OFF OF ME!"

That actually seemed to snap Clark out of it a little, because Clark reared backwards slightly, then seemed to make the conscious decision to finally let go of him.

Lex grumbled to himself a little as he pushed himself backwards a bit, sitting farther upright with his back flush with the wall, and rubbed his wrists, wincing at the soreness. "I am about to lose patience with you, Clark!" Oh, and what he wouldn't give for a good chunk of green-K right now. "What, exactly, do you think I am lying about?"

"You like girls; you're not homosexual. You're not attracted to me," Clark sneered.

"Yes, correct, and wrong," Lex challenged, in order.

Clark stared at him, and then looked like he was having some severe cognitive dissonance that was only two steps away from deciding strangling Lex was a working solution.

"Tell me what you're thinking, Clark." He paused, then added, "Please."

Clark grimaced and looked like he was one step closer to the strangulation solution. "You can't be physically attracted to me if you're not homosexual," he said, trying to sound calm and rational about it.

"Christ, Clark! 'Homosexual' really only applies to sexual attraction between members of the same species, didn't they ever teach you about pheromones in biology class?" he snapped, and why was Clark was staring at him like...? "--Oh god, they didn't go over pheromones and human sexuality in--" Fuck. Double-fuck. Lex hated the Kansas public school system. Clark wasn't insane, nor had he suddenly snapped and lost it for unknown reasons -- he'd just been operating under an incredibly-wrong series of assumptions. While Lex could berate Clark for not extending to him the benefit of the doubt, he couldn't fully criticize Clark's reasoning -- it hadn't exactly been unsound, starting from what he had thought he knew. Damnit. Lex wasn't sure if he was more relieved, or downright furious.

Clark frowned down at him. "No, we learned about pheromones and all that stuff. It was the first day of sophomore school year and--" he paused, then shook his head. "So the film stopped halfway through because of the fire, but I did some reading when I was trying to figure out Desiree..." He stopped when Lex laid a careful hand on his arm.

"Clark, do us both a favor and tell me everything you know on the subject, exactly as you remember it," Lex demanded.

Lex tried not to marvel at Clark's memory, which had to be photographic or eidetic or similar because he seemed to be reciting word-for-word what he'd read and heard. The former he stated without inflection, but the latter he was repeating parrot-like while mimicking the sound of the voices he'd heard. Lex reminded himself that he was still mad at Clark, shook it off with some effort, and focused on the content of his speech, instead.

"You might note that all of the information you just related to me is limited to heterosexual pairings." Lex pointed out blandly. "Between humans."

Clark reared back to argue with him, then paused as he seemed to reshuffle through his memories for ammunition he couldn't find, and then he slowly slumped.

"That's--" Clark looked frustrated in the extreme. "But--" Then he rethought everything that had happened earlier in their confrontation in a new light and started. Then he looked angry all over again. " _Why didn't you tell me you felt that way?!_ " Clark yelled at him, fisting his hair.

"I asked you first," Lex said tiredly, dropping his head back against the wall.

"What??" Clark froze, went expressionless again for a moment, then a lot of things flashed across his face. "Son of a--" he muttered, scrubbing at his face. "I don't believe this," he said shakily.

"I'm waiting," Lex said, crossing his arms. He'd be damned if he didn't get an answer to his question after all this.

"It's not-- that isn't--" Clark stumbled in his speech, slowly relaxing and slumping into a more comfortable lower kneeling posture. Then he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know."

Lex frowned at him.

"I really don't!" Clark protested. "I just... I think I knew it, but didn't know it, for a long time. That I was attracted to you, I mean. It just wasn't... something I thought about like that. I don't think about you like that," he tried to explain. "It's like, brotherly almost? --But not. Because I've thought about... kissing-things with you sometimes, but not other..." he shook his head. "I've tried watching and reading... things..." he waved his hand. "It just doesn't... I've seen how most people -- humans -- react to things like--"

"Porn?"

"Well, uh, yes."

"And it just doesn't do anything for you."

"No."

"Hm."

Clark scrubbed his palms down his thighs and bit his lip. "I really don't have anything against homosexuals or any of that stuff."

"I didn't think you did."

"Good."

There was a short pause, then:

"Lex, when did you...?"

Lex grimaced and ran a hand over his skull. "I was attracted to you from the moment we first ...met." Clark looked startled. "I wasn't about to do anything when I realized you were grossly underage," Lex added. "And it's not as though I was incapable of self-control when not under the influence of vast quantities of drugs or alcohol. I just thought I could ignore it and push it under and it would go away, and I thought it had."

"You thought...?"

"I came to the conclusion that we'd been dating for years back when we'd been... friends and I just hadn't realized it. After deciding that I wanted to try to pursue a more... meaningful relationship with you, and trying to think of how I could gain your attention."

"We weren't dating!" Clark protested. "I didn't think of them like dates! And you didn't either; you just said so. Both people have to think that for it to count. We were just hanging out! And... wait, you thought yelling and angry kisses at work was a good way to get my attention?!"

"No, I thought dates and spending lots of quality time together was a good way of doing that, but then I got sidetracked because _I thought you were keeping more secrets from me!_ And you were!" Lex ended hotly.

"So were you!"

They glared at each other.

"Damn it, mom and Conner both knew, didn't they," Clark realized.

Lex realized that he really didn't want to think about that one too closely, because if they'd noticed, then who else had?

They were both silent for awhile.

"I'm sorry I manhandled you," Clark said. "I shouldn't have done that."

"I'm sorry that you still don't trust me," Lex retorted evenly.

"Well, you didn't either! We were _both_ scared to say anything, and I bet it never even occurred to you that that might be it. It _isn't_ fair to get so mad at me for things you do, too, you know. You always complain about how I hold you to an impossible higher standard, but you do it, too!" Clark groused.

Lex sighed and closed his eyes.

"Look, can we just start over?" Lex asked.

"Well, I don't know about _that_ ," Clark said stuffily.

Lex slitted his eyes open, watching Clark, and felt unbelievably tired.

"I mean," Clark continued. "I'm pretty sure Conner would have something to say about you trying to wreck one of your cars by driving it off a bridge, and I bet it won't be nice."

Lex slowly started to smile.

He leaned forward and touched a gentle kiss to Clark's lips. This time, Clark slowly responded to Lex's advances, sliding forward and deepening the kiss. More soft touches, and a slight sigh from Clark as they finally parted.

"We'll do better this time," Lex said.

~*~*~*~*~*~

END


End file.
